I am very bad at remembering the books I've read and so recently I had a wonderful experience. I decided I wanted to teach Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. I hadn't read it in twenty-five years. I was surprised to find how much I drew from that book. Stole from that book, learned from that book about writing. I had forgotten and there it was. Morrison has called that text faulted. I cannot see how.
Samantha HuntThe lion's share of my work is revision, 85%? I revise forever, combing over lines, listening and listening to them in different hours and moods so that I feel they are finally right for me.
Samantha HuntThe first time I took my daughters to the ocean - and I love the ocean but where we swim is very rough, very New England, rip tide, not messing around ocean - and a thought arrived: I was asking my daughters to slowly recognize death, just dip their toes in its fathomless edge, to know it is there, even in the night when we don't see it and that it, in its mystery and largeness, in its terror, is the thing that makes life precious, magnificent and full of never-ending curiosity.
Samantha HuntOne last important influence I'll mention is Flannery O'Connor. In high school I shoplifted her Complete Stories. Having read "Good Country People" for class, I really just felt a home in her work. I had little guilt about the theft at the time. I sucked in my stomach and shoved the book into my pants. It's very big. I can still feel how it cut into my body in the most exciting way. Clearly, I don't feel guilt-free about this crime anymore - I wouldn't be mentioning here, looking for some absolution if I did.
Samantha HuntThe Dark Dark is a far slower project, clearly, and that's a relief. I look for slowness anywhere I can find it.
Samantha HuntOne book that has meant much to my writing is W.G. Sebald's The Emigrants. He uses a photograph of Vladimir Nabokov hunting butterflies in a similar way. The image or a reference to the image is traced throughout the four separate narratives. It sometimes seems to be the only link between the pieces, while the symbol Nabokov cuts remains wide open, a pencil sketch, a mystery to interpret outside his role as emigrant/observer.
Samantha Hunt