★ 09/11/2023
Hunter (Eat Only When You’re Hungry) spins a thrilling and addictive story of a murderer, his troubled mother, and his next-door victim. Theresa Linden, a 40-something suburban mother, is bludgeoned to death in her garage. The culprit is identified quickly as her 14-year-old neighbor Douglas Stinson. As the fractured and nonlinear novel unfolds, Hunter reveals how Douglas was egged on by his mother, Jackie Newsome, who was Theresa’s best friend. The women met on the maternity ward after they gave birth, and their bond grew over the years as they coped with the difficulties of motherhood. Jackie’s family life is one of “pure survival”; assisted only by her benevolent but unsophisticated husband, she struggles to manage four rambunctious sons, including malevolent Douglas, her oldest and her “protector.” Life at the Linden house is scarcely more inspiring, as Theresa’s sex life with her husband, Adam, has evaporated. A few years before the murder, Jackie joins a weight loss program, where the leader encourages her to “give a new name.” She picks “desire” and winds up seducing Adam. Hunter gradually doles out the circumstances behind Theresa’s murder, showing how the affair sets in motion a series of events that prompt Jackie to make Douglas feel like he must protect their family. In chapters told from various characters’ points of view, Hunter expertly explores the psychology behind their actions, showing for instance how Jackie’s desire and need for its reciprocation becomes destructive. It’s a remarkable character portrayal, earning the reader’s sympathy even while establishing Jackie’s culpability for Theresa’s murder. Hunter’s masterwork hits all the right notes. Agent: Jim Rutman, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Nov.)
Praise for Lindsay Hunter:
“A novel of staggering vision and tremendous heart. On full display here are Hunter’s nonpareil technique, her skillful excavation of her characters’ interior landscapes — a digging done both ruthlessly and yet with abundant mercy — and her inspired inventiveness at the level of language.”—Los Angeles Review of Books on Eat Only When You’re Hungry
“This novel takes us on a road trip with an American Everyman into the heart of American hunger—for freedom, for connection, for junk food, for love. Hunter has a brilliant sense for the perfectly telling image, and her humor is so biting and smart it was almost a surprise, at the end of this engrossing book, to realize how thoroughly she had broken my heart.”—Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You on Eat Only When You’re Hungry
“Hunter’s magical prose is the sort of thing that might happen if George Saunders and Gertrude Stein co-edited Raymond Carver. The stories vary wildly in pace and procedure, but each has its own visceral language that goes straight to the gut.”—Nylon on Don’t Kiss Me
“Mesmerizing . . . visceral . . . exquisite. Hunter’s portraits are heartbreaking. She cares about characters we don’t want to think about, issues we would rather not face. These are not lovable characters; they make you sad and sometimes sick . . . They kind of make you feel like your heart could kick the windows out.”—Chicago Tribune on Don’t Kiss Me
“These 26 stories, deeply internalized in neurotic lyricism, are hilarious and fully realized portraits of the disavowed . . . And in the uproarious title story, a woman obsesses over a female coworker she envies and despises. Miranda July and George Saunders come to mind, but Hunter’s crass yet tender characters are unprecedented, relating fart jokes and impossible sentiment in stylized prose that mirrors their threadbare souls and ineffectual optimism.”—Jonathan Fullmer, Booklist on Don’t Kiss Me
“Lindsay Hunter is a dazzling talent, and with Ugly Girls she has written what will surely go down as a new American classic. Every character is complex, every scene is dense as a bullet, and every sentence pulses with electricity. Magnificent.”—Christina Henriquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans on Ugly Girls
''I am in awe of Lindsay Hunter. Her debut novel is a canny examination of American girlhood under pressure - gritty, terrifying, and funny as hell. As Perry and Baby Girl, bound together by a friendship that is at once tender and toxic, hurtle through their world of trailer parks and stolen cars and lies, the dangerous secrets they uncover are matched only by the darkness simmering within. Ugly Girls is spiky, electric, unforgettable.''—Laura van den Berg, author of The Isle of Youth on Ugly Girls
★ 09/01/2023
From her first story collection to her most recent novel, Eat Only When You're Hungry, Hunter has always written with a sort of ruthless courage that takes us to the bitter edge. And she's done it again in her latest, featuring best friends Theresa and Jackie, who met while giving birth and now live next door to each other, their families deeply entwined, with Jayson, one of Jackie's four rowdy sons, and Theresa's daughter Cece attracted to each other. And then Theresa is discovered gruesomely bludgeoned to death, the culprit caught immediately, the deed enacted only a day after the raucous affair between Jackie and Theresa's husband was discovered. What results is a devastating portrait of two damaged families and one monstrous woman you won't soon forget. Jackie had lost herself in marriage and motherhood and had gained considerable weight, then honed herself razor-sharp, so that one son said, "She made herself into this new person, a thin stranger"—one often indifferent to the needs of others. Questions bubble up throughout. Can we change? What's the cost? What are our responsibilities to ourselves and to others? What is the nature of desire? VERDICT And by the way, who was the killer? Hunter keeps readers guessing in a book that's both thriller-taut and an immersive study of human behavior.—Barbara Hoffert
When a nice Midwestern mom loses pound after pound, devours carrot sticks, shuns Fritos, and quits baking cookies for her four sons, it could be a sign of impending disaster. Narrator Emily Ellet introduces listeners to Jackie, who revels in her new thin, seductive body. Ellet's Jackie has an earthy, insouciant personality. The story is about two next-door families who are caught up in murder, guilt, and grief. Each affected family member is featured and their reactions presented. There are numerous characters, but some voices do stand out, namely those of the nearly childlike Ceci, the victim's daughter; the sweet yet soporific prison psychologist; and Sammy, the barely functional youngest of Jackie's sons. Numerous sex scenes are more monotonous than erotic. D.L.G. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
★ 2023-08-26
Two young mothers meet in the hospital and a collision course is set.
Their friendship is pure, uncomplicated; in the swirling chaos of motherhood, it offers them each an anchor. Jackie Stinson’s family even moves in next door to Theresa Linden’s. But there is a darkness in Jackie; overwhelmed by the constant needs of her four sons and her car-salesman husband, her secret solace becomes eating. It’s Theresa who suggests they join a weight-loss group, and soon the measuring of calories, of meals, of single bites replaces Jackie’s previous addiction to food. People begin to notice her, especially men, and this newfound power leads Jackie to make a choice that destroys a friendship, leads to a brutal murder, and tragically alters forever the lives of her sons and Theresa’s daughter as they struggle into adulthood themselves. While Jackie is the only narrator who speaks in the first person, there are chapters from almost every character’s point of view, and the novel spans several decades. The murder is revealed almost at once, the identity of the killer much later, but this isn’t really a crime novel. It’s a novel about a woman who doesn’t know who she is and how her emptiness devastates not only her own life, but the lives of all those she loves. It’s about how her love is complicated because there is, at the heart of it, a fist of resentment, and how this love becomes a trap. Hunter’s lyrical writing performs the miracles here; while Jackie herself is hard to sympathize with, Hunter captures her complex humanity in stirring and gorgeous prose: “There once was a woman named Jackie, and sometimes she let life happen to her, and sometimes she didn’t. At the end she stood around and thought, What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?”
Tragic to the core—and yet, there is beauty in the telling.