- Published: 5 February 2015
- ISBN: 9781448191352
- Imprint: Vintage Digital
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 256
Neverhome
- Published: 5 February 2015
- ISBN: 9781448191352
- Imprint: Vintage Digital
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 256
A spare, beautiful novel, so deeply about America and the language of America that its sentences seem to rise up from the earth itself. Laird Hunt had me under his spell from the first word of Neverhome to the last. Magnificent
Paul Auster
The Civil War has given us so many great literary works that I couldn't have imagined a new fictional approach that was both stunningly original and yet utterly natural, even inevitable. But this is just what Laird Hunt brilliantly delivers in his new novel. The key is his central character: in her voice, her personality, her yearning, she deeply touches our shared and enduring humanity. Neverhome is masterful work by one of our finest writers
Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
Hunt brings an especially bittersweet and lyrical tone to this forgotten part of Civil War history and gives to several hundred women who did indeed make the momentous decision to fight….An amazing book
Library Journal
An exquisitely wrought vision of the terrible ravages of war - on the land, on the human body, and on the mind
Booklist
With nothing but the simple language of well-worn words, Mr Hunt has conjured up a wholly original heroine with an utterly fresh voice... A book that deserves a wider readership.
The Economist
Neverhome is a wondrous feat. Few novels written in English approach its linguistic verve
Eileen Battersby, Irish Times
A brilliant and breathtaking blaze of a novel
Clare Clark, Guardian
This is a slim and unshowy story of devastating power, an epic poem in its own vernacular, an upside-down Odyssey at once particular and hauntingly universal. Quietly, relentlessly, without wasting a word, it works its way under the skin and into the marrow of the bones... Hunt has coaxed a brilliant and breathtaking blaze of a novel.
Clare Clark, Guardian
Staggering... he reinvigorates the American language with a poetic urgency equal to Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The story is strong, the prose superbly wrought.
Eileen Battersby, Irish Times
A beguiling and evocative story about love and loss, duty and deceit... Neverhome took me on a journey so thoroughly engrossed that there were times the pages seemed to turn themselves.
Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds
Original, powerful writing
Viv Groskop, Red Online
This book casts such an intoxicating spell…that its end comes as a cold shock… This is an alluring novel with a stubbornly enduring afterlife
Big Issue
One of the strengths of this compelling novel…is its blend of realism with a powerful sense of the folklore around women who defy the expectations of the societies in which they find themselves
Erica Wagner, New Statesman
Neverhome is a memorable evocation of a life twisted out of shape by violence and cruelty
Sunday Times
The ending is in equal parts surprising and satisfying… I was left wanting more from this entrancing novel. Ash is a thoroughly compelling narrator and Neverhome a dark gem of a book
Frank Brinkley, Literary Review
It’s a fascinating slant on history. I am looking forward to reading Neverhome again at a more leisurely pace to savour the language and larger-than-life characters
Margaret Cain, Nudge
[Neverhome] is a remarkable achievement. You awake from it as you would from a nightmare — sadder, wiser — knowing that war makes a nest inside you; fear unpicks the soul. And if you return from it intact, you bring it with you
Alexander Gilmour, Financial Times
Gritty, lyrical and compelling
Neville Hawcock, Financial Times
Hunt’s ability to render real events in a fictional form…shouldn’t be underestimated. He pitches his story perfectly, making Constance/Gallant Ash a rounded and psychologically convincing character. His depictions of battle scenes and a landscape ripped apart by war are also striking and authentic.
Lesley Mcdowell, Independent