... lovely ... a virtuosic portrait of midcentury America itself — physically stalwart, unerringly generous, hopeful that tragedy can be mitigated through faith in land and neighbor alike ... Hunt is not shy about his elegant ambitions with this small novel. The epigraph is from Flaubert’s A Simple Heart. The chapter titles are from Virginia Woolf’s The Waves. This is not fiction as literary uproar. This is a refined realism of the sort Flaubert himself championed, storytelling that accrues detail by lean detail ... Hunt’s prose is galvanized by powerful questions ... What Hunt ultimately gives us is a pure and shining book, an America where community becomes a 'symphony of souls,' a sustenance greater than romance or material wealth for those wise enough to join in.
... a slight but poignant chronicle ... In six breathtaking chapters, Hunt chronicles the moments both life-changing and mundane that make up Zorrie’s life. Writing in lyrical but economic prose, he masterfully paints a detailed portrait of a remarkable woman with the finest details while still managing to weave in sweeping historical events without ever distracting from his main character ... full of life and as inevitable as the seasons, but also full of fragile and delicate truths. Zorrie is a novel that feels like it lives and breathes, and Hunt’s ability to interweave unimaginable beauty with poignant, deep longing makes it an instant American classic.
...meditative, eerie, and beautiful ... Hunt’s touch here is so gentle ... The novel’s simplicity, at first inviting, becomes disarming. Zorrie is living a life that we know will be shortened ... Here, about halfway through the novel, Hunt further undoes the trusswork of a journey tale. The novel undergoes a tonal shift that turns a placidly told story with undertones of tragedy into something more dreamlike. The language becomes more ethereal and suggestive, and the sentences stretch out ... It’s as if a Marilynne Robinson novel got microdosed.
Laird Hunt has a reputation for sensitively chronicling women’s lives ... He returns to the Indiana setting in his delicate new novel, Zorrie, a powerful portrait of longing and community in the American Midwest ... Hunt chronicles the events of Zorrie’s life with swiftness and precision ... Hunt tells their stories with a quiet sensitivity rarely seen in modern American fiction ... Despite occasional dry passages, Zorrie is a poetic reminder of the importance of being a happy presence in other people’s memories.
The plot does not gallop across the page. Rather, it has the relaxed pace of a Midwestern flower unfolding — leaf, bud, and blossom. Hunt paints Zorrie’s life lyrically, up close, and in prose that reads at times like poetry ... For readers in 2021 whose lives have been detoured by lurking contagion and fear, Zorrie, which chronicles the danger of a microscopic foe from the middle of the last century, feels like a welcome fellow traveler — a wise, provocative companion alongside you on a difficult journey.
Hunt celebrates the majesty and depth in a life that may superficially seem undistinguished. Zorrie Underwood is a farmer in central Indiana, and as she and readers survey her 70-or-so years, her joys and sorrows are deeply observed and felt. With compassion and realism, Hunt recounts Zorrie’s story straightforwardly, with setting-appropriate dialogue and an eye for sensory details. A beautifully written ode to the rural Midwest.
During an early scene, Zorrie and her friends toss flakes of radium paint into the air and stare with wonder at its seemingly miraculous glow. Through an ordinary life of hard work and simple pleasures, Zorrie comes to learn the real wonder is life itself. A quiet, beautifully done, and memorable novel.
Hunt documents an unremarkable life in this compassionate outing ..Hunt’s storytelling flows smoothly, its rhythms unperturbed by preciousness or superfluous detail. Fans of Kent Haruf’s Plainsong trilogy will love this subtle tale of rural life.
A woman’s life in rural Indiana takes shape amid dreams, losses, and fulfillment in this quietly effective work ... Hunt manages in less than 200 pages to convey his heroine’s whole life, telescoping years and rarely departing from seasonal and small-town rhythms. His often lyrical prose traces Zorrie’s hopes, griefs, loneliness, and resolve with remarkable economy, although there are occasionally patches that sound forced. A touching, tightly woven story from an always impressive author.
