Lyrical, reflective ... If the constant fullness of these internal monologues can sometimes feel slightly monotonous, it doesn’t detract from the gratification of reading ... In the process of learning what makes each character tick, what feels at first like a loosely linked collection grows revelatory, unearthing an ecology of elusive connection and meaning.
Questions of fate and identity meander through these stories ... Without even the slightest sentimentality about it, the book provides an elegy for a lost generation.
The portrayal of a real community lends a nostalgic feel to the vignettes ... If Float Up, Sing Down is spread thinner than Zorrie, it continues Mr. Hunt’s neat trick of conveying human complexity through the simplest of scenarios.
Wonderful ... The separate stories are subtly connected, like the rings of a stone skipped across a still lake. As the associations build and cohere, you feel Bright Creek more viscerally, both the way it can suffocate from gossip and also lift up the lonely through daily waves and hellos. At times melancholy, at times laugh-out-loud funny ... A celebration.
Carefully interweaves fourteen stories from in and around Bright Creek, IN ... Readers should warmly welcome this belated interest: his focal range may be purposefully tight, but the stories in Float Up, Sing Down are compassionate and universal.
An intricate tapestry of 14 interlocking stories ... Hunt's slow-build approach to storytelling makes these characters' lonely lives all the more poignant. Rural life is anything but mundane in these pitch-perfect stories.
