Mr. Splitfoot

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Mr. Splitfoot is one of those rare books in which both the language and the story take center stage. I was hooked by the remarkable prose and then compelled by the inventive plot and the (somewhat literally) fantastic characters. It is a beautiful, funny, bizarre, and wholly original tale that manages to incorporate love, death, motherhood, séances, and ghost activism. Recommended By Jill O., Powells.com

A New York Times Editors’ Choice * A Paris Review Staff Pick * An Indie Next Pick

"Hypnotic and glowing." — New York Times Book Review

"An intriguing mystery with clues, suspense, enigmas galore, and an exhilarating, witty, poignant paean to the unexplainable, the unsolvable, the irreducibly mysterious." — Boston Globe

Ruth and Nat are seventeen. They are orphans. And they may be able to talk to the dead. Enter Mr. Bell, a con man with his own mystical interests. Together they embark on an unexpected journey that connects meteor sites, utopian communities, lost mothers, and a scar that maps its way across Ruth’s face.

Decades later and after years of absence, Ruth visits her niece, Cora. But while Ruth used to speak to the dead, she now won’t speak at all. She leads Cora on a mysterious mission that involves crossing the entire state of New York on foot. Where is she taking them? And who—or what — is hidden in the woods at the end of the road?

"An escapist adventure, a gothic page-turner that is also so finely crafted that you’ll feel enriched as well as transported for having read it." — Esquire

"An American gothic fever dream." — Chicago Tribune

"Gripping." — The New Yorker

"Part road trip, part gothic, Mr. Splitfoot belongs on the shelf beside The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Samantha Hunt is astonishing. Her every sentence electrifies. Her characters demand our closest attention. Her new book contains everything that I want in a novel. If I could long-distance mesmerize you, dear reader, into picking up this book and buying it and reading it at once, believe me: I would." Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble,Magic for Beginners, and many others

"A truly fantastic novel in which the blurring of natural and supernatural creates a stirring, visceral conclusion." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

"Ethereal... The book deftly straddles the slippery line between fantasy and reality in a story that’s both gripping and wonderfully mystifying... [I]nterconnected chapters build suspense while keeping readers guessing about what crazy turn might happen next. Hints of what’s in store for readers include a cult of Etherists, a noseless man, a pile of lost money, and a scar-like pattern of meteorite landings. This spellbinder is storytelling at its best." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

Samantha Hunt's novel about Nikola Tesla, The Invention of Everything Else was a finalist for the Orange Prize and winner of the Bard Fiction Prize. Her first novel, The Seas, a twisted tale of mermaids, won the National Book Foundation's Five under Thirty-five prize. She lives in upstate New York.