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Published Nov 2023
320 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
The third title in Roxane Gay Books' inaugural list, Hot Springs Drive is an urgent, vicious blade of a novel about a shocking betrayal and its aftermath, asking just how far you'll go to have everything you want
Jackie Stinson's best friend is dead, and everyone knows who killed her.
Jackie wants to be many things, but a martyr has never been one of them. She is an ex-emotional eater and mother of four, who has finally lost the weight she long yearned to be free of. In her new, sharp-edged body, she goes by Jacqueline. But leaving her old self behind proves harder than she ever imagined. And while she believes she should be happier, misery still chases her, and motherhood threatens to subsume what little is left of her.
Her only salve is her best friend Theresa, whose seemingly perfect life she desperately covets. Since they met in the maternity ward 15 years earlier, the two have survived the trials of motherhood side by side – Theresa with her quiet, cherubic daughter, and Jacqueline with her rambunctious, unruly boys. Their bond is tight, but it is not enough to keep Jacqueline, finally moving through the world in the body she has always wanted, from stealing a bit of Theresa's perfect life.
Hot Springs Drive is a dark, heart-pounding exploration of one woman's deepest desires, and how the consequences of betrayal can ripple outward beyond the initial strike point. In her third and fiercest novel, acclaimed literary voice Lindsay Hunter deftly peels back the fragile veneer of two suburban families and the secrets roiling between them.
"Hunter's lyrical writing performs the miracles here ... [capturing] complex humanity in stirring and gorgeous prose ... Tragic to the core —and yet, there is beauty in the telling." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A] thrilling and addictive story ... Hunter's masterwork hits all the right notes." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Hunter has always written with a sort of ruthless courage that takes us to the bitter edge. And she's done it again ... [Hot Springs Drive is] a devastating portrait of two damaged families and one monstrous woman you won't soon forget ... Hunter keeps readers guessing in a book that's both thriller-taut and an immersive study of human behavior." —Library Journal (starred review)
"Hot Springs Drive is Lindsay Hunter at her finest. Suburbia is rendered here in all its bleakness and not-so-hidden dysfunction, the rot secreted inside the picture-perfect shell of a home. Hunter is a deft hand at writing the mysterious inner workings of the family: everyone shares a story, but who holds onto the truth? Hot Springs Drive is gritty and propulsive, a true page-turner; I couldn't put this book down." —Kristen Arnett, author of With Teeth and Mostly Dead Things
"Poignant, luscious, brutal, gorgeous, heartbreaking, and totally unique—this stunning book destroyed me, and I didn't want it to end." —Andrea Bartz, New York Times bestselling author of The Spare Room
This information about Hot Springs Drive was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Lindsay Hunter received her MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the author of two story collections and three novels. Her story collection Don't Kiss Me was named one of Amazon's 10 Best Books of the Year: Short Stories. Her novel Eat Only When You're Hungry was a Book of the Month Club selection, a finalist for the Chicago Review of Books Fiction Award, and an NPR Great Read. She lives in Chicago with her family.
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