The Exquisite

If David Lynch impregnated Paul Auster, or vise versa, and the no-doubt prodigiously coifed offspring, inspired by W.G. Sebald's THE RINGS OF SATURN, were to write a novel set in New York's East Village, this would be it. Funny, atmospheric and just plain cool.

The Exquisite has pleasured me more than any other novel this year. More, in fact, than any novel since either B.S. Johnson's or Hunt's last. That The Exquisite (and, indeed, Hunt's work in general) is regularly compared to Paul Auster's novels is certainly good copy: but it fails to take into account the fact that the wan light which emanates from the pages of all his works is his and his alone. One is reminded of Kafka, Wodehouse, Creeley; and yet when one puts down the latest Hunt novel there is a sadness to the knowledge that nothing will come along that is quite as satisfying (and that is certainly the right word) until his next. What goes on in The Exquisite is best left untold, for, although what goes on in the novel is the reason most first-time readers will initially go to it, it is the how of the telling that is most compelling. Hunt's prose: at times surreal, at times delicate, at times as robust as Hemingway, never fails to engage, amaze and amuse. There are very few authors today who are moving the novel on from its moribund and money-bound pastures. It is both a surprise and relief that The Exquisite (Hunt's finest work since The Paris Stories) is in the world doing just that.