Revelatory, unearthing an ecology of elusive connection and meaning.

New York Times Book Review

The separate stories are subtly connected, like the rings of a stone skipped across a still lake. As the associations build and cohere, you feel Bright Creek more viscerally, both the way it can suffocate from gossip and also lift up the lonely through daily waves and hellos. At times melancholy, at times laugh-out-loud funny, Float Up, Sing Down is a celebration of the universes contained in the everyday. If you are a fan of Elizabeth Strout's depictions of rural Maine, you will love Hunt's openhearted yet wry take on this small corner of Indiana.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Questions of fate and identity meander through these stories . . . Hunt's characters are not self-created in the manner most modern Americans like to think we are. The ripple effects of an abusive father, an indulgent mother, early success that fizzles-all guide a life's path, sometimes quite literally . . . And somehow, without even the slightest sentimentality about it, the book provides an elegy for a lost generation, or maybe for all the elders still here, as overlooked as the Midwest itself.

Los Angeles Times

The apparently placid setting disguises a deep reservoir of feeling and lets Mr. Hunt enlarge on his depiction of haunted ordinariness . . . The portrayal of a real community lends a nostalgic feel to the vignettes . . . Polite exteriors and private reckonings characterize the collection.

Wall Street Journal

Hunt has mastered a style that feels both traditional and fresh. [His] stories of Bright Creek . . . offer a timely refresher on human decency. Just as importantly, they remind readers that suffering, joy, death and renewal are all connected factors in life's crop cycle.

Financial Times

This story takes place over one remarkable day in a small Indiana town. It's a tale that seems small at first but feels more consequential as it goes on, just like the lives it describes.

Good Housekeeping