The Hunters

Claire Messud is incredible. I read this in one sitting because I just couldn't put it down. I don't mean it was super suspenseful, I just mean the writing, the characters were so interesting that I had to keep reading. I absolutely loved this and "The Woman Upstairs", liked "The Emperor's Children"......more

This duo of novellas should have been a much bigger deal than it was. From a craft perspective, they are dizzyingly accomplished. She slyly does not reveal the name or gender of the protagonist of the second book, but you don't notice until the very end, when it becomes significant, and you are left......more

When I read "A Simple Tale", I was quite disappointed. For me, it had no life. It was well written but seemed detached---ordinary. I was reluctant to start on "The Hunters" and was prepared to abandon it if it continued in the same vein, but lo and behold---the story was full of life and emotion and......more

I'm a newly converted Messud fan. I loved these novellas. Although the stories couldn't be more different, they share a very similar emotional atmosphere: isolation and how we reconcile the part of us that "shows" to those parts of us that are hidden, and can we ever reconcile the two? In telling Ma......more

I love Claire Messud, and this book features two shorter novellas in one volume. The first story is the better of the two, following a Ukrainian woman through her life in a tiny village to the ravages of concentration camps in WWII, to her emigration to the US, and her life as a cleaning woman. As a......more