The Dark Dark: Stories - Paperback

by Samantha Hunt (Author)

A Best Book of the Year: NPR, Vogue, The Huffington Post, The Chicago Review of Books, The National Post, Electric Literature, Kirkus

"Wields such a subtle and alien power . . . Wonderfully spooky." --Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker

"A feminist manifesto threaded through imaginative fiction; it's the most evocative, impressive collection I've read this year." --Daniel Johnson, The Paris Review

From the acclaimed author of Mr. Splitfoot, Samantha Hunt's first collection of stories, The Dark Dark, blends the literary and the fantastic and brings us characters on the verge--girls turning into women, women turning into deer, people doubling or becoming ghosts, and more

Step into The Dark Dark, where an award-winning, acclaimed novelist debuts her first collection of short stories and conjures entire universes in just a few pages--conjures, splits in half, mines for humor, destroys with absurdity, and regenerates. In prose that sparkles and haunts, Samantha Hunt playfully pushes the bounds of the expected and fills every corner with vibrant life, imagining numerous ways in which the weird might poke its way through the mundane. Each of these ten haunting, inventive tales brings us to the brink--of creation, mortality and immortality, infidelity and transformation, technological innovation and historical revision, loneliness and communion, and every kind of love.

Laced with lyricism, hope, Hunt's characteristic sly wit, and her unflinching gaze into the ordinary horrors of human existence, The Dark Dark celebrates the mysteries and connections that swirl around us. It's never all the same, Hunt tells us. It changes a tiny bit every time. See for yourself.

Author Biography

Samantha Hunt's novel about Nikola Tesla, The Invention of Everything Else, was a finalist for the Orange Prize and winner of the Bard Fiction Prize. Her first novel, The Seas, earned her selection as one of the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35. Her novel, Mr. Splitfoot, was an IndieNext Pick. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, McSweeney's, Tin House, A Public Space, and many other publications. She lives in upstate New York.