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Summary
Summary
It started with a body, the head of it pretty much gone, the hands skinned. We found it the Saturday after Thanksgiving, out to Hungry Neck Hunt Club. Uncle Leland owns the Hunt Club, which might make him sound important, or rich. But he's not.
Huger Dillard is no ordinary fifteen-year-old from the Lowcountry of South Carolina. He may not have a father to help him grow up, but day-to-day guiding of his blind Uncle Leland--Unc, for short--and weekends spent at the Hunt Club have made him an expert on the habits of deer, the pompous attorneys and doctors of nearby Charleston, and the ways of the world. But with Unc's discovery of a mutilated body, Huger suddenly learns that he is expert at nothing--least of all his own life. Everything he knows and everyone he loves--Unc, his mother, his foundering teenage romance--is at risk, and Huger must use every ounce of resourcefulness and bravery to stay alive and protect what he believes in. Yet, when he finally discovers precisely what happened that Saturday morning, there is still one more secret to uncover, this one too dark, too deep, for him to even imagine.
From Bret Lott, the critically acclaimed author the Los Angeles Times called "one of the most im-portant and imaginative writers in America today," The Hunt Club is a novel of deft pacing and remark-able detail, and a sultry evocation of a land and culture that has existed for generations but soon may be lost forever.
Author Notes
Bret Lott is the author of the novels Jewel, Reed's Beach, A Stranger's House, and The Man Who Owned Vermont; the story collections How to Get Home and A Dream of Old Leaves; and the memoir Fathers, Sons, and Brothers. His stories and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines, among them The Southern Review, The Yale Review, The Iowa Review, the Chicago Tribune, and Story, and have been widely anthologized. He lives with his wife, Melanie, and their two sons, Zebulun and Jacob, in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and teaches at the College of Charleston and Vermont College.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The publisher calls Lott's fertile new novel both a mystery and a thriller. Whatever its genre, the book represents a departure in form for this author of four literary novels (Reed's Beach, etc.), two story collections and a memoir. There's no departure in theme or tone, however, as 15-year-old narrator Huger Dillard comes of age in a crucible of fear fired by the discovery of a headless, partially skinned corpse on his family's tract of wild South Carolina land. Lott skillfully explores the penumbra of family-centered despair that has shadowed his previous work, and does so in the loamy prose that has won him praise. Huger finds the body while acting as a guide, along with his "Unc," to a group of physicians from Charlestonthe Hunt Club of the title. Within hours, Huger's life is threatened and his mother kidnapped, apparently to force Unc to sell the family land to those doctors. Lott works a tight, complex plot, however, and reveals only incrementally the link between the corpse and that conspiracy, which masks further conspiracies involving illegal drugs, insurance fraud and buried treasure. Devastating family secrets are exposed, as well. Lott's characters are as vital as heartbeats, as is his sense of place, but he occasionally chafes against the genre form. The novel's central sequencea chase in the woodsgoes on too long, and too many questions are answered by villains who can't stop talking. Lott's motifs, particularly regarding human fallibility (Unc is blind, there's a deaf and dumb girl, etc.) are too visible. Suspense runs high, however, and as a portrayal of a boy's acceptance through suffering of a world riven by sin but grounded in love, the book is moving, memorable, even masterful. Author tour. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Lott is known for his relationship-centered literary novels, but his publisher is billing this one as a thriller. Don't be fooled, for at the heart of this wonderfully well written novel is a haunting coming-of-age story. Fifteen-year-old Huger Dillard and his blind "Unc" run a hunt club on the weekends, playing host to the town's celebrated circle of wealthy doctors. One Saturday, they stumble upon a headless corpse bearing a cardboard sign identifying the body as Dr. Charles Middleton Simons, and the murderer as his wife, who is later found hanged in a motel room. The story unfolds to encompass greed, slave history, and the black market in rare artifacts. The thriller aspect of the tale, though suspenseful, is somewhat convoluted and suffers from erratic pacing; however, Lott's lyrical descriptions of the landscape in the Low Country around Charleston and his delicate unveiling of the mystery of Huger's parentage are terrific. This may well give Lott and his layered, hypnotic prose the visibility they so richly deserve. --Joanne Wilkinson
School Library Journal Review
YA-This coming-of-age tale moves at a swift clip and has an intriguing plot. Huger Dillard, 15, and his blind Uncle Leland enjoy an almost father-son relationship as Huger helps the man run the Hungry Neck Hunt Club. Discovery of a decapitated body with skinned hands and a note pointing to the dead man's wife as the murderer cancels the annual Thanksgiving hunt and signals the beginning of what seems to be a land-development scheme. As the plot moves forward, Huger, his mother, and Leland are kidnapped and have to fight for their lives as they discover that there is more at stake than prime land. Layer after layer of secrets unfold that explain the disappearance of Huger's father as well as the real demands of the kidnappers. Huger and Leland's roles reverse until the teen is the stronger of the two and assumes the position of decision maker. The novel's action and excitement will be enjoyed by YAs who like John Grisham and John Gilstrap.-Pam Spencer, formerly at Fairfax County Public Schools, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A gifted and expert storyteller (Reed's Beach, 1993, etc.) takes a slightly different--and not altogether successful--turn in his first thriller, set in the lowlands of South Carolina. Fifteen-year-old Huger Dillard narrates, with colloquial southern charm, the deadly adventure he and blind Uncle Leland stumble across at the opening of deer season. Leland, referred to as ""Unc,"" owns the Hungry Neck Hunt Club, several thousand undesirable acres catering to city slickers eager to play weekend frontiersmen. The mystery begins when Huger and Unc stumble on the body of Dr. Charles Simons, head blown off, hands skinned, and a cardboard placard propped on his body--signed by his disgruntled wife. The story then, which takes place in three rapid days after the body's discovery, becomes a chase for the troth. Uric falls under suspicion, Huger is nearly killed by a couple of crazed rednecks, Mrs. Simons ""commits suicide,"" and Huger's mother is kidnapped. Ultimately, the motivation is revealed as simply greed (what else?), with the goal either an ancient buried treasure or the Hunt Club's land, which Unc has always refused to sell and which apparently is earmarked for a resort. Brought into the intrigue is Miss Dinah, who cooks Saturday meals for the Club members while unnerving Huger with ancient tales of African kings haunting the marshes, and her teenage daughter Dorcas, deaf, dumb, and brilliant. The story stumbles just at the traditional payoff: the revelation of the conspiracy. As a group of shackled innocents, including Uric and Huger, wait for execution, the villain diligently explains all, detail by detail. A series of reversals follow before the killer is brought to justice. Ironically, Lott's characters seem too interesting for their conventional plot; the bits of family secrets, history, and lore scattered throughout here are far more compelling than the adventure these sympathetic folk are thrown into. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Lott (Reed's Beach, LJ 9/1/93) unleashes his imagination and displays great versatility as a writer with this, his first thriller. In a dark tale of greed and violence, somewhat reminiscent of Davis Grubb's Night of the Hunter (Kensington, 1992), Lott leads the reader through a harrowing weekend in November in which a blind man and his teenage nephew are targeted for death. Set in the Ashepoo River backwater of South Carolina, the story is told from the perspective of 15-year-old Huger Dillard, who serves as eyes for his uncle, proprietor of a hunt club for wealthy Charlestonians on the family's 2200 acres of swamp and woodland. Wise beyond his years, Huger is nevertheless unprepared to cope with murder, suicide, kidnapping, and a night of being stalked by a pathological killer intent on gaining ownership of the Dillards' seemingly worthless land. A good read with action, suspense, and a hint of Southern folklore.Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.