Містер Сплітфут

by Samantha Hunt, Максим Ларченко (Translator)

«Містер Сплітфут» – книга, що викликає захоплення.

Видавництво # книголав представляє новинку у серії «Полиця бестселер» - роман Саманти Гант «Містер Сплітфут», що представляє альтернативну літературу США, готичну, відверту й шокуючу.

Дія роману Саманти Гант, американської письменниці та сценаристки, розгортається на півночі штату Нью-Йорк. Дві сюжетні лінії містично переплітаються. В одній сироти Рут і Нет вдаються до спіритизму, щоби вирватися з-під опіки релігійного Батька. В іншій, тринадцять років потому, оніміла за загадкових обставин Рут несподівано з'являється в житті вагітної племінниці Кори, аби вести її пішки в невідомому напрямку… «Містер Сплітфут» ? історія про шахраїв і фанатиків, байдужість і секс, матерів і метеорити. Це розповідь про болюче дорослішання у світі, де за помилки доводиться розраховуватися кров'ю, а живі бувають огиднішими за мерців.

«Ця книжка – не легке читання, а шлях, крізь який інколи треба продиратися. Втім, майстерність Саманти Гант на те заслуговує. Роман розвіює штампи про Америку як країну-мрію, звертається до традицій готики і реалізму, які посилюють одне одного, створюючи химерну оповідь, що постійно тримає читача у напрузі. Переконана, «Містер Сплітфут» сподобається українському читачеві», ? зазначає співзасновниця видавництва # книголав Світлана Павелецька.

Genres: Fiction, Horror, Fantasy, Gothic, Magical Realism, Mystery, Audiobook

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 5, 2016

About the author

Samantha Hunt was born in 1971 in Pound Ridge, New York, the youngest of six siblings. She was raised in a house built in 1765 which wasn't haunted in the traditional sense but was so overstuffed with books— good and bad ones— that it had the effect of haunting Hunt all the same. Her mother is a painter and her father was an editor. In 1989 Hunt moved to Vermont where she studied literature, printmaking, and geology. She got her MFA from Warren Wilson College and then, in 1999, moved to New York City. While working on her writing, she held a number of odd jobs including a stint in an envelope factory.

Samantha Hunt received a National Book Foundation award for authors under 35, for her novel, The Seas. The Invention of Everything Else was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. She won the Bard Fiction Prize for 2010.

Reviews

[Adina]

DNF at 10%. The writing makes me cringe. Part of my speed dating with books in my hope to remove some of my unread books on Kindle.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 Stars

I need to listen to my wife more often. She read this years ago and said it was terrible. I have had it on my TBR, saw it was nominated for some awards, noticed it was available from the library, and figured it couldn’t be all that bad so I might as well try it. Well, my wife was right!

The only reason it is not 1 star is the first third or so was actually pretty good and interesting. But, don’t you just hate it when the awesome plot development dissolves into non-sensical ramblings and time jumping? That is exactly what happened here. It is never a good sign when you are fully invested at 1/3 and could care less by 2/3 because the plot has completely devolved and become almost incomprehensible.

Also, the character relationships and their actions really bugged me. I didn’t understand motivations and I didn’t believe the discussions people were having. Then, someone would do something really outlandish without giving me, as a reader, any reason to believe that it was logical behavior for their character or the plot. It was just kind of a silly mess.

So, now I will add my 1 or 2 star review disclaimer. This review is based solely on my experience with this book (and apparently my wife’s experience, too). I am sure there are those out there who love it and will completely disagree with me. That is totally cool! I just must stay true to my personal experience with a book, and in this case, it was not a good one.

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This fever dream of a book took me on a heck of a vivid road trip, which is pretty impressive considering I read it during a blizzard and my most significant actual journeying consisted of short trips to the kitchen to procure drinks and blizzard snacks like Valentine's Day peanut M&M's.

I love a good communes-and-cults book, am fascinated by members/characters' quests for belonging, meaning, explanations, family, origin stories, and stories of where and how we'll all end up in the end. This book has all of this, in spades; there are cults within cults and virtually every character is questing for all of the above. This tangled web of questing characters, as intricate as a map of meteorite crash sites scarring the earth (something that's in the book), creates a kind of crazy, frozen lakey, Upstate New York Gothic Vortex into which the reader is sucked like a vulnerable, emancipated, aged- out orphan seeking refuge (also a book reference).

Of course, where you have questing vulnerable humans, and cults and communes, you also have con men and women, traveling snake oil seance-holding salesfolk whose livelihood involves controlling others and keeping them in thrall. So again, given that cults and communes are abounding here, never outside a collection of Flannery O'Connor stories have you ever seen such a collection of various and sundry fictional con artists of various stripes, some nobly antiheroic, some deserving of at least some antipathy, and some seemingly downright cloven-footed.

Samantha Hunt herself is a crafty con artist of an author who maintains a very delicate balance of keeping things juuuuust mysterious and intangible enough so that you really do feel lost in space for much of the time you're reading the book, but also grounds and specifies and humanizes everything juuuuust enough so that you are invested in the outcome and keep forging through, in the grip of suspense to discover whatever may be there whenever you may be fortunate enough to emerge through the shadows and into the other side. And what ends up being there is pretty crazy on one hand, and pretty traditional on the other hand, and all thoroughly acceptable by the time you get to that point, having been so well prepped - might we even say subtly, slowly indoctrinated - by Hunt throughout the preceding pages.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was brilliant. Was it a ghost story or a dream or a con or.... well you'll just have to decide that for yourself. If you don't like ambiguity in your endings you won't like this one but if you do this is a gem. Lot's of authors use the alternating chapters/timeline but Hunt's execution is perfect if somewhat unsettling. It was very easy to get lost in which timeline you were in.

[inciminci · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read Mr. Splitfoot for my Mount TBR challenge over at Horror Aficionados since it was sitting on my shelf for six years (According to the price tag, in those olden days I paid 5 euro for it, which is sadly impossible now).

It is an interesting enough book about two young orphans, Ruth and Nat, who have been adopted by some ultra religious jerk for tax money who seriously neglects them. While they play a game of talking to the dead, they are picked up by a traveling salesman and start living a different life as con mediums. In a parallel storyline we follow the girl Ruth as an adult, finding and running off with her niece who is pregnant out of the wedlock and the father of the baby is trying to abort it contrary to her wishes, putting stuff in her food and all.

The book had partly pacing problems as one of the two storylines leaves much to be desired as the other kept me engaged. In an unexpected turn of events, this changes in the course of the book and the dull story becomes interesting while the other fizzles out. I can't say I liked or understood the characters either. Still, it was worth the read, if only for the satisfaction of being able to cross one more title off my list. Aaaaahhhh... 😑

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

The historical and the fantastical entwine like snakes in Samantha Hunt’s fiction. Her first novel, “The Seas” (2004), caught the tale of a mermaid who loved an Iraq War vet. “The Invention of Everything Else” (2008) screwed time-traveling gizmos onto a story of the inventor Nikola Tesla. And now, her new gothic novel, “Mr. Splitfoot,” germinates in the loamy soil of religious fanaticism.

From her home in the Hudson Valley, Hunt must have soaked up the spirit of New York’s dark woods, which have long been fertile ground for revelations. Remember, it was here, in the Empire State, that. . . .

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

[Ioana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Samantha Hunt is a poet of the most insightful, lyrical, soul-wrenching order. I am simply blown by the ways in which she strings words together- truly, as one of her characters puts it at one point - challenging the "tyranny of fiction". I am no poet myself so I am not going to pretend that I can write an analysis or otherwise render Hunt's style. What I can say is that, as a practical-scientifically minded person who teaches math for a living, I absolutely crave the soulfulness, joy/melancholy, ecstasy, sensuousness of the artistic... spirit (?), embodied so holistically in this work.

Of course, to me, math is art, but that's not usually how I practice it (ah, standardized testing, Common Core, etc, etc, inane quantitative measures of intangible things). So in my "spare time" such as it is during the school-year (no children yet, which is why I still have some), I try to inspire (inhale, motivate myself) what creative energy I can (usually by reading fiction).

This is one of those books that amply and even overflowingly fills the well depleted by my profoundly non-artistic day-to-day existence. Reading Mr. Splitfoot, I am fully immersed in a chaotic but attuned, blunt and melodious, simple yet so profound soup/dance/game/orchestra of words. Words that, in their at times discordant ways, birth an illusion (reality?) that is more true than most things I encounter in my daily trudging. This book is a hauntingly resonating, masterfully written artistic masterpiece.

But it is also so much more than that, for the perspectives it presents, for the setting and content. Or perhaps, this work is art because of the ways it approaches the eternal questions (what is meaning? death? being a mother? told through the fevered dream-like narrative of an ex-cult member/family). A critic somewhere wrote that Hunt writes "from the margins". Indeed - this is not a story that takes place from within the comfort of that which most of us take for granted: a caretaker (or mother), a home, a steady job/income, a more or less "typical" way of interaction with the world around us. It's the story of abandoned children, well-meaning but religiously deranged individuals, "unnatural" (unconventional) attachments, con-men, people doing everything to survive, and others trying to make meaning after deeply troubled childhoods.

For me, the content and perspectives were much needed jolt out of my insanely undeserved comfortable existence (the job, the cats, the house, the car, the food supply, the safety and comfort). If you've seen Winter's Bone, the mood Hunt builds is a bit like that. Not quite the same, but I haven't read or encountered anything like Mr. Spitfoot before, so it's difficult to draw parallels. It's just so ... quintessentially out-the-mainstream, marginalized American (American gothic, according to critics). And yet, despite, or perhaps because of, the characters' outsider-status, Hunt's writing helps us understand our own quests, troubles, ghosts, desires so much more clearly than we would if we were observing our self-imposed system from the inside.

I absolutely LOVED this book to pieces, but although I would highly recommend it to everyone for its educational and artistic power, I couldn't guarantee that you will enjoy this - I would only hold some kind of hope. A bit like how I wave my hands around excitedly about math in class; while I win some converts every year, to many more of my students I am probably just the crazy math teacher. This book is not for everyone, and you may find it frustrating, especially since, as I mentioned, it's not written in a conventional style (basically, a poem in narrative form), and in general challenges all conventions through its characters, the setting, perspectives, etc. If you like your stories to stand on solid ground, I am just the crazy person waving my hands around right now. But, to each his own - life is awesome because each one of us basks in a different light.

[Althea Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ruth and Nat are two teenagers stuck in a religious group home in upstate New York. Unsure what they'll do when they turn 18 and 'age out' of the Love of Christ! facility, Ruth is ready to consider desperate measures to find some kind of future for herself and her best friend. An option turns up when the two meet a traveling con man, Mr. Bell, who suggests that they start profiting off Nat's reputed ability to speak to the dead - one he's so far only used to scare and entertain the fellow foster kids at the home. Mr. Bell also comes from an unusual religious background, we learn - his father was the leader of an apocalyptic cult. Is this commonality of experience the reason he's drawn to Ruth and Nat, or is there a different agenda behind his seeking them out?

Intercut with Ruth & Nat's story is one that unfolds some 20 years later. Cora is a seemingly ordinary young woman with a normal job and life. She knows that her mother didn't have a good childhood, but those foster homes and abuse seem very far in the past. But when her boyfriend reacts very, very badly to the news that Cora is pregnant, an emotional crisis point is reached. Just at that moment, Cora's enigmatic but long-idolized Aunt Ruth appears. Refusing or unable to speak, Ruth leads Cora on a long walk through New York State, with no known destination.

I picked up this book because of the comparison to Kelly Link, but I didn't quite feel the similarity there. Rather, I felt that this book was very much written in the style of a great deal of contemporary post-apocalyptic lit-fic. It's not apocalyptic (although there is that apocalyptic cult), but the way it is written makes modern life feel apocalyptic. The fact that all the characters are alienated from modern society (either emotionally or through forced isolation) contributes significantly to this, as does the narrative's occasional tips into the realm of the bizarre. The themes of the book are also ones that are present in much of the post-apoc genre.

I liked the book, and moreover, appreciated that it was very well-crafted. I didn't emotionally love it, however... perhaps just because of the high unpleasantness quotient.

Many thanks to HMH and NetGalley for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinion is solely my own.

[Ace · Rating 4 out of 5]

A complex and layered 'ghost' story, Ruth and Nat live in an orphanage (run by a complete religious nutter and alcoholic) called The Love of Christ. A cruel and hunger ridden childhood brings these 2 kids eventually into the hands of a conman who uses Nat's 'channeling' skills to make some quick cash from unsuspecting and quite gullible customers who believe Nat can talk to their dead relatives. As the kids travel along the country channeling the dead, another storyline is developing with Ruth's niece Cora. In some parts quite spellbinding, they trek across America to find something that Ruth wants Cora to see. Fantastic read, a bit gruesome and I didn't see the end coming at all!

Thanks to Little, Brown and Netgalley.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an impulse read and also a page-turner! The layout of the novel with chapters going back and forth between two women and time-periods made it very easy to read "just one more chapter". The story is classified as horror, but I'm not sure I would put it in that genre, but there are definitely other-worldly elements, ghosts and trying to figure out what is real or not. And the book just got better as I neared the end.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

“All stories are ghost stories,” Samantha Hunt proclaims in her quirky third novel about the crossover between motherhood and mysticism. In a dual storyline that takes in fundamentalist cults, unlikely mediums and a pregnant woman’s pilgrimage, Hunt asks whether one can ever believe in the unseen. Mr. Splitfoot has the offbeat charm of Scarlett Thomas’s work. While the plot ultimately feels like a bit of a jumble, its vision of unexpected love and loyalty remains compelling. “The End’s always coming,” but it is how one lives in the face of brutality and impending extinction that matters.

See my full review on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website.

[Julianne (Leafling Learns・Outlandish Lit) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

Mr. Splitfoot was an incredible read that kept delivering beautifully thought out strangeness. This is a perfect book for #weirdathon in March, if you're looking for potential reads. If you dig cults or Carl Sagan at all, read this. I continue to think about this wildly original story, and I'm now kind of obsessed with Samantha Hunt.

Some highlights from my video chat/review with Shaina Reads:

Shaina: There’s a cult. There’s some weird magical realism. And it’s a love story.
Julianne: Sort of.
Shaina: Sort of. And there’s like weird sci-fi elements.

Julianne: I don’t even know how to begin explaining why this book is good. Like it seems impossible to put into words.
Shaina: I mean it’s impossible to put into words partially I think because a lot of the words we use would be very big spoilers.
Julianne: Yeah.
Shaina: But it just draws you in and you’re really - I mean you don’t know what’s going on but you’re kind of happy to not know what’s going on. You’re happy to like go along for the ride.
Julianne: You know that it will be revealed. You know you’re not going to be let down, because there’s too much random weird shit going on. You’re like ok this is going to connect in some way and I really want to see what she’s going to do with it. Ya gotta have faith.


Full review with video: Outlandish Lit

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weird and very odd story, dealing with two narratives in the past and present day.

In the first, we learn of Ruth as an orphaned child, situated in the home of the overzealous and religious Father, where she grows up together with Nat. To entertain themselves they 'speak to the death', bringing horror to some of their fellow orphans. After meeting the mysterious Mr. Bell, they find a wider audience, making some money in the hope of escaping their Love of Christ! home. Years later, Cora is living a life in this digital age where everything needs to be shared online, "if we don't post it, it never happened".

Then one day Ruth turns up and whisks her niece on an adventurous walk to an unknown destination.

Cora barely knows her aunt, having met her only once at the age of 11, and being infatuated with her ever since. "I liked my mother fine, but Ruth was like being close to thunder. And then Nat. Lightning." Since Cora is in need of change in her life, she goes along without protest.

A ghostly and supernatural undertone can be felt throughout the story. With a religious fanatic and an apocalyptic cult and its leader thrown in, it all felt a bit too unreal. As the reader, you are not sure what exactly is going on, and where and how it all fits together. Characters felt unattached and thus the reader too. It is an interesting story though, and readers who like their thrills to be a little bit unearthly, will definitely enjoy this.


Review copy supplied by publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a rating and/or review.

[Daisy · Rating 1 out of 5]

A jumbled mess of a book. Starts of owing a great debt to Geek Love as we meet our protagonists being raised in an orphanage with Amish overtones full of kids with deformities run by a religious nut. Moves into being a road trip odyssey (but only every other chapter because, you know, this is the clever way we will tell the story, the present and the past alternating), throw in elements of the ghost story, the con and the slow burning but ultimately tragic love story and you've covered all bases. Winner right?
Wrong! It was so repetitive, the walking odyssey was chapter after alternate chapter of sameness. The ghost/grift element was mildly interesting but never described in enough detail to be interesting - the eponymous character is mentioned a couple of times but remained shady and under explained. The book seemed to tear itself apart in its attempt to marry up the supernatural and improbable while keeping it anchored in reality. By the end I was confused as to the relationship between certain characters and their motivations remained a mystery.
It was a book I ploughed on through in the hope that something would happen, but nothing did, unless you count my blood pressure rising as I got increasingly exasperated with it.
Avoid.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. I just don't think I can capture, in words, just how much I loved this novel. I have never read anything quite like it. I never completely knew what was happening but I could NOT put it down. It's weird and strange and nutty in all the best ways!

The structure of the book - alternating chapters with two different narratives - make the book feel unsettling in some ways. You know they will come together but you have no idea how or when. The world that Hunt creates is mesmerizing and odd and wonderful. I don't typically like not knowing where I'm going when reading but if the writing is good enough, I can go along with the ride. And boy, did I go along with the ride on this one. SO. DAMN. GOOD. Someone described this as a 'fever dream of a book' and I think that is such a great description of this one.

There are some startling and poetic moments in this novel. I think it's probably not for everyone but I highly recommend it. Especially if you enjoy great literary fiction ... this is literary fiction that knocks it out of the park!

[Latasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book isn't what I thought it would be. I thought it would be a period piece but it isn't and that's ok. it's a great story but once you sit and think about what your hearing, it's really messed up. I enjoyed the story a lot but I never saw that end coming.

[debra]

I don't know how to rate this. This was an engaging, somewhat surreal and suspenseful story that was related in a split account linking past and present. The narrative contained many interesting disparate, mysterious characters and themes. I assumed, incorrectly, these elements would eventually come together into a cohesive whole. Upon completion, however, I realized that I was supposed to reflect on the enigmatic significance of random details and discern the similes, metaphors, symbolism,and whatever else they were supposed to be representative of. My reaction was a very predictable "WTF, I don't care enough to analyze and propose possible meanings and discussions about thisshit nope sticking with shit, and another WTF and a GTFOH" for emphasis. Hence, my dilemma in choosing a star rating.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Samantha Hunt’s Mr. Splitfoot has been labeled as gothic, horror, magical realism. Like the many intersections that pervade this work – Ley Lines, constellations, reality, life and death – there is no one word that can summarize this book.



Although Mr. Splitfoot has been billed as a ghost story, it is as much a story about cults, religious fanaticism, and the schemes of con-artists, but more so I would say it is a story about motherless children and childless mothers.

“There’s sacrifice, antagonism, rebellion, obsession, and adoration, but no properly complex word for what’s between a mother and a daughter, roots so twisted, a relationship so deep, people suffocated it in kitsch and comfort words to pretend it’s easy.”

Split into two different timeframes, one of young Ruth and that of Cora, all of the main characters in Mr. Splitfoot - Ruth, Nat, Cora and Mr. Bell - are on journeys that extend from reality into fantasy and blur the lines between life and death. All are driven by the need for this mother-child relationship. “How does she know herself without a mother?” In the first storyline Ruth and Nat are troubled teenagers living in a commune-like group home run by a despicable charlatan who uses religion to abuse the kids as he manipulates the foster care system for his financial gain. The “sister” pair devise a plan to escape Love of Christ! foster home before they age out and are separated forever. The alternative storyline reunites Ruth with her niece Cora who is facing a troubled pregnancy.

Mr. Splitfoot can be defined as a love story – one that transcends time and space, reaches over the barrier of death and embraces imperfection.
“Perfection scribbled out or the imperfection that makes you, me, anyone, perfect and complete because it includes the truth of our mortality.”

[a_reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

If this book had a soundtrack I imagine it would be early Tori Amos jamming hard on the piano in angst and melancholy similar to her Little Earthquakes. Reading this was a psychotic head trip into the obscure: lunatic religious cults, spiritual con artists, and a ludicrous road trip. It's part Fight Club with the popular culture references and NOS4A2 with the creepy overtones, but mostly it was the humor that struck me. I loved the dual narrative and how they both intertwined at the end. Basically I loved everything.

The best blurb ever from the back cover:

"I get the chills. Is it a true story? Is it a sad story? It's what people want. It has a lot of good energy and people, people will like it. It's intriguing because a person will know there's something two-sided. It's a good one."

Charlotte Bronte (speaking through a medium)

[Melissa Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a crazy read that had that dream-like, hazy quality to it. I wasn't sure I liked it at first but as I kept with it and the two timelines started to meld together, I became more settled with the story. Ended up really enjoying it. Will have to look at other books the author has written.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

“You need to remember artifice,” she says. “Art isn't a hawk making lazy circles in the sky. Beauty doesn't equal art, and it can't just be the world in a package. It's got to take the world and mess it up some. Add the artifice as a lens, right?”

This one Christmas, one of my brothers took a gift certificate from a local record store, sealed it in an envelope, and then put it into an old cd case from which he had removed the cover art (I know that HMV eventually sold empty jewel cases for just this purpose, but this was a totally original idea at the time; I'm serious that this was long enough ago that we're not just talking about actual cds, but a paper gift certificate). Wrapping it in shiny paper and affixing a bow, when he gave it to our other brother on Christmas morning, the recipient's sarcastic reaction was: “Oh gee, I wonder what this is?” Unwrap, unwrap, sees envelope. “Oh, not a cd. You got me.” Opens envelope and finds gift certificate. “Oh, it kind of is a cd. You really got me.” Reading Mr. Splitfoot is exactly that same experience: You're presented with a shiny package; you're familiar with the format and are intrigued to find out the details. Once you get inside, however, you realise that you've been dealing with a conman and things aren't exactly as they appear. And then you dig a little deeper and realise you've been the victim of a long con and all the middle stuff was misdirection. Do you find that delightful? An artful artifice? To me, so far as the book is concerned, the payoff wasn't worthy of the intriguing setup and I left disappointed. This will contain spoilers.

Mr. Splitfoot is told in alternating timelines. In the first, we meet the children in the Love of Christ! foster home; a sham religious setup where the children are starved and abused, forced to wear Amish homespun, and homeschooled in racism and misinterpreted scripture. After her older sister “aged out” when Ruth was only five, the little girl formed a fast bond with the newest foster brother, Nat (also five), and the two vow to be “sisters” forevermore, sleeping platonically in the same twin bed well into their teens. Nat discovers that he can speak with the dead, and the scenes where they retreat to the basement coal bin to contact the mothers of the foster home's orphans were suitably creepy:

“No. Shh.” He bobs his head from side to side, clearing the air of her question. Mid-bob, he freezes. Their grip tightens. The house groans. A disturbed and breathy voice comes from Nat's mouth. “Got any more candy?” Mr. Splitfoot sounds sexy.

“Who are you?”

Nat leans into her, inhaling like an animal. She feels the brush of his soft stubble on her cheek. Then quickly, in her ear. “Who do you think, you filthy?”

In the second story arc – it's something like fifteen years after the latest events of the first timeline – we meet Cora; the grown daughter of Ruth's older sister. Cora lives a shallow life, obsessed with social media and internet shopping, and when she discovers that she's pregnant, her married lover is none too happy. One night, Cora finds Ruth (whom she met only once, when Nat and Ruth first left the foster home) hiding in her room, and despite the fact that Ruth refuses to speak, Cora understands that they have an urgent mission, and without a word to her mother, Cora sets off on a months-long journey, travelling the length of the Erie Canal by foot. This section also gets creepy:

When I see him outside the school in his leather coat and sunglasses, I welcome the experience of familiarity. But then I see Ruth's face. Her eyes follow every step he takes. I close the book. She watches him rattle the chains of the padlock, bang his cane against the doors, as if we are the last nuts in a jar he'll shake until we fall into his hardened hand.

The two timelines eventually converge and all is made clear And this is where my metaphor of the cd case comes in: Although we understand that Ruth is only pretending to be psychic, the reader believes that Nat is channeling Mr. Splitfoot, but that's revealed to be a lie. So there's nothing supernatural here, BUT WAIT: In the second timeline, Ruth was a ghost all along, trying to make things right from beyond the grave. Is that a delightful ending or a cheat? It didn't work for me. And yet, so much of this book's promise just didn't deliver. I was immediately intrigued by the idea that Nat and Ruth vowed to be “sisters” forever; what's that about? And then when there's a story about three sisters from upstate New York who pulled off a psychic con a hundred years ago and then when someone asks Ruth where her “third sister” was, I thought, “Oooh, something good will happen when 'three sisters' get together; that's why a boy needs to be thought of as a 'sister'.” But, no; none of that means anything. I was intrigued early on when everyday things were referred to by their scientific names (“Ruth scratches her fingers across the Stachybotrys chartarum mold growing on the stone walls” or “In summer Drosophila melanogaster breed in the compost pile”) and I wondered why these undereducated kids would be thinking in these terms (it made me think of wolfsbane and mandrake root and witches' brews), but nearly as soon as I noted it, this stopped. I was fascinated by the idea of a megalomaniac who wanted to start a church based on a blend of Joseph Smith and Carl Sagan – there's a beautiful symmetry between the founder of the Latter Day Saints discovering the golden tablets of heavenly knowledge buried in New York state and Voyager being sent into space with the golden LPs that contained all that's terrestrial – but despite this premise (and the map of the meteorites that resembles Ruth's scar and whackos snorting Comet for goodness sake), there's simply no payoff if everyone's a conman.

Mr. Splitfoot really didn't work for me, despite some engaging parts; which is surprising because I picked it up after skimming so many gushing reviews. This seems like a book that will totally come down to personal taste. Not for me, maybe for you.

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

“For her, Mr Splitfoot is a two that is sometimes a one, mothers and their children, Nat and Ruth, life and death.”

By conjuring up the image of a cloven hoof, the titular Mr. Splitfoot on the one hand evokes associations with the devil himself, and on the other wonderfully describes the dyadic theme that pervades Samantha Hunt’s novel and lays down the law for things to come.

Much of this book begins as two loose strands that eventually intertwine: the past and the present, the natural and the supernatural world. And in between the story of Ruth takes place.

History holds up one side of our lives and fiction the other. Mother, father. Birth, death, and in between, that’s where you find religion. That’s where you find art, science, engineering. It’s where things get made from belief and memory.

Ruth grows up in the Love of Christ! foster home, run by Father – a religious fanatic who has his very own interpretation of the Christian faith and sees his flock mainly as a source of income by receiving money from the state.
The girls wear plain dresses last seen on Little House on the Prairie reruns.

Ruth is inseparably tied to Nat, a frail boy who she claims as her new “sister”, because her real sister had to leave the foster home.
Nat can talk to the dead. And in this novel’s world - teeming with mad sect leaders and con men - this is the best way for two foster children to emancipate themselves.

About 15 years later, a long-absent and now mute Ruth turns up at her niece’s - Cora, who just found out she’s pregnant from a man who doesn’t even come close to father material.
The two of them set off on a road trip. The destination known only to Ruth.

This certainly is no feel-good novel. It leaves a kind of a bad taste in your mouth. It is horror and it is horror of my favourite kind: where everything is just always a bit off. Just slightly wanders off the expected path. A distorted image of our comfort zone.

„Art isn’t a hawk making lazy circles in the sky. Beauty doesn’t equal art, and it can’t just be the world in a package. It’s got to take the world and mess it up some. Add the artifice as a lens, right?”

I loved the writing in this book, because Hunt creates interesting imagery, like “Nat flips the feathers of his hair” or “The legs pull back inside the window like a turtle’s neck. Whispering begins again as if this thing hiding inside the car isn’t a victim of the crash but the demon that caused it. “

On top of that though, it is great storytelling: the alternating chapters between past and present provide drips of information, that keep you guessing what might happen next in this spellbinding story.

[Perry · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Bohemian Brew [posted originally May 17, 2016]
[3.5 stars, boost to 4 for debut]
Defying simple description, this might best be described as a gothicly picaresque coming-of-age novel, with distinct avant-garde elements of the supernatural, grotesque, skate punk, cult, funk, flim-flam, dirty girl romance, celtic folk metal, occult, horror and the surreal.

Or, that it's a strange stew brewed up by a bohemian witch, just awaking from a nap at the credibility gap.

[Abbie | ab_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another 4.5 stars, this one was just so much fun yet unexpectedly sad in parts! I just had some timeline issues. Full review to come!

[The Girl with the Sagittarius Tattoo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well that didn't turn out like I thought. A few years ago this book was all over my GR feed. I added it back then, so at least another old TBR is off the pile!

In the past timeline, Ruth and Nat bond as orphans living with a religious nut. They spend their days learning history and the Bible according to Father Arthur, and if the children step out of line they can be starved, stuck alone in a room for days, or even locked out overnight in the middle of winter. They dream of the day they turn 18 and can leave, but in the meantime Ruth and Nat put on seances for the other kids in exchange for a few dollars. A man named Mr. Bell discovers them and offers to help them elevate their con game. This works well until a man from Bell's past tracks him down and the trio goes on the run.

In the present timeline, Ruth's niece Cora is pregnant by a man who doesn't want a baby. Cora's unhappiness devolves into desperation just when Ruth arrives and convinces Cora to leave with her. She probably expected a road trip, but instead got a long hike north into the Adirondacks.

Based on the title and blurb, I expected something evilly paranormal. No such thing was to be found. Rather, this is more a story about criminals on the run from each other and the two naive kids who get dragged along. And Cora on a hike.

[Lisa Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the strangest books I've read in a long time, and also one of the most addictive. Although I wasn't too sure whilst I was reading it if I was enjoying it, I couldn't put it down, and have since come to the conclusion that I LOVED it.

It's a very strange story, with some very strange characters - a boy who claims to be able to speak to dead people, a cult leader, a man with no nose after it rotted off through leprosy, all linked together with a girl who doesn't speak. It sounds weird, it is weird, but it was a strangely beautiful read with a truly magnificent ending, one that I wasn't expecting that I kept thinking about long after it was finished.

If you like something a little bit out of the ordinary, and are happy to try something different, then i highly recommend this book - it doesn't fit in any specific genre for me, but I found it really beautiful and unusual - it's either going to sink without trace or be a massive, massive hit.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the blurb Mr. Splifoot seemed to be interesting: Religious cults, weirdos,mystery, gothic horror. All boxes were ticked. In reality Mr.Splifoot is not a disaster but it's not great either.

The plot itself is good: the book alternates between children growing up in a religous cult and then escaping and one of the children returning to take her niece on a special journey. There's some bits that are intriguing and I like the way Samantha Hunt brought the two plot threads together.

However there are dull bits. The journey between aunt and daughter verges on the boring, while some scenes during the children narrative are baffling, to the point of uselessness. Also the sub Palahniuk prose irritated me after a while. If this book was turned into a 150 page novella it would have been perfect. Anyway there is a satisfying pay off and those are the last 70 pages, which are great. A good book but one I recommend borrowing.

[Book Riot Community]

Ruth and Nat grow up in a group home run by a religious fanatic. Nat pretends to speak to the dead family members of the other kids in the home, or so he says, and before they can age out of the system, a mysterious con man named Mr. Bell takes their show on the road for those willing to pay. Flash forward a number of years, and Ruth, grown up and mute, insists her niece follow her on an uncertain trek across the state of New York. What are they running to or from? The multiple perspectives come together beautifully to reveal the haunting conclusion as Ruth’s past meets her present. — Andi Miller



from The Best Books We Read In January: http://bookriot.com/2016/02/01/riot-r...

[Alex Andrasik · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing. Parallel storylines tell of love, loss, birth, death, faith, mothers and daughters, sisters, damaged people, subtle monstrosity, and an epic journey through upstate New York (hi, Lackawanna!), told in meaty, refulgent prose. Each story in its own timeframe marches inexorably toward a deadly confluence. Buy this book when it's available!

[Allison ༻hikes the bookwoods༺ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book, billed as contemporary gothic horror, to kick off my Halloween themed reading, but I was left disappointed. It’s an okay read, but not scary in the least.