Fiction. "In the center of the country in the center of Indiana in the heart of the country, down a long, dark hallway," Noah Summers, a simple man who has led a far from simple life, sits before a raging fire, drifting in and out of sleep. On this dark and lovely winter night, he will sift through the shards of his memories, trying to make sense of a lifetime of psychic visions and his family's tumultuous history on an Indiana farmstead.

As a young man, Noah, a true innocent, fell deeply in love with Opal, a young woman with a penchant for flames. Once married, the couple move into their own house on his family's farm. After forty-two idyllic days, Opal is overcome by her fascination with fire and institutionalized. Though Noah embarks on a journey to save her, he cannot, and must instead rely on her letters, his memories, and the strength of his family to sustain him.

Written in a masterful elegiac style that echoes Faulkner and Steinbeck, INDIANA, INDIANA is a compellingly beautiful and surreal Midwestern saga firmly grounded in an Indiana landscape populated by farmers, drifters, sheriffs, and ministers, and overflowing with musical saws, family bibles stuffed with flowers, and appliances rusting in the fields.

Author City: BOULDER, CO USA

Called "one of the most talented young writers on the American scene today" by Paul Auster, Laird Hunt is the author of four genre-bending novels and was a finalist for the 2010 PEN Center USA Award. Born in Singapore and educated at Indiana University and the Sorbonne in Paris, Hunt has lived in Tokyo, London, The Hague, New York, and on an Indiana farm. A former press officer at the United Nations and current faculty member at the University of Denver, he now lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Reviews and Other Links
author site