Bug Hollow
- Author Michelle Huneven
- Narrator Emily Rankin
- Publisher Orion
- Publish Date 17 June 2025
- Run Time 7 hours and 47 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Fiction: general and literary.
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What to expect
'Feels like watching a master painter at work' Ann Napolitano
'Wonderful. A moving portrait of an imperfect family' Jennie Godfrey
'I adored it' Claire Lombardo
'A gorgeous, sprawling family saga' Literary Hub
When Ellis, her older brother, tragically fails to return from a week up the coast, the world of the Samuelsons never spins on the same axis again. Especially when Julia, Ellis's girlfriend, shows up pregnant on their doorstep.
And over the next four decades, the family fractures and rebuilds again and again - in a story that takes in grief, love affairs, illnesses, late-in-life marriages and long-hidden secrets, to show one complicated but loving family trying to make sense of the world.
'Crackles with compassion . . . I inhaled this book in a weekend, regretting only that it would ever end' Leslie Jamison
'Like a narrative love child of Alice Munro's stories and Elizabeth Strout's novels' New York Times Book Review
'Huneven is a literary sister to Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler and Tessa Hadley' Raffaella Barker
'I couldn't stop reading this story of a beautiful, broken and quirky family who feel utterly real' Ericka Waller
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'This book broke my heart and put it back together'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A beautiful portrait of a complicated, ordinary, and extraordinary family'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'May be one of my favourite books of all time'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'The perfect nostalgic summer book'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'So real and heartwarming. I loved every character, flaws and all'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Best book I read this year!'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'This novel just wedged its way into my heart and soul'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'If you're a fan of Anne Tyler and Elizabeth Strout, you will love this'
'Wonderful. A moving portrait of an imperfect family' Jennie Godfrey
'I adored it' Claire Lombardo
'A gorgeous, sprawling family saga' Literary Hub
Summer, California, 1970s. Sally Samuelson is eight years old, and the course of her family's life is about to change.
When Ellis, her older brother, tragically fails to return from a week up the coast, the world of the Samuelsons never spins on the same axis again. Especially when Julia, Ellis's girlfriend, shows up pregnant on their doorstep.
And over the next four decades, the family fractures and rebuilds again and again - in a story that takes in grief, love affairs, illnesses, late-in-life marriages and long-hidden secrets, to show one complicated but loving family trying to make sense of the world.
'Crackles with compassion . . . I inhaled this book in a weekend, regretting only that it would ever end' Leslie Jamison
'Like a narrative love child of Alice Munro's stories and Elizabeth Strout's novels' New York Times Book Review
'Huneven is a literary sister to Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler and Tessa Hadley' Raffaella Barker
'I couldn't stop reading this story of a beautiful, broken and quirky family who feel utterly real' Ericka Waller
Readers love Bug Hollow . . .
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'This book broke my heart and put it back together'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A beautiful portrait of a complicated, ordinary, and extraordinary family'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'May be one of my favourite books of all time'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'The perfect nostalgic summer book'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'So real and heartwarming. I loved every character, flaws and all'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Best book I read this year!'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'This novel just wedged its way into my heart and soul'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'If you're a fan of Anne Tyler and Elizabeth Strout, you will love this'
Critics Review
Phil and Sibyl Samuelson and their three children are at the center of this deeply satisfying novel, but Huneven's leaps through time and stories provide constant surprise and delights . . . Reading the novel feels like watching a master painter at work: color is laid down, forms emerge, and then at the end your breath is taken away, because it has all come together
Bug Hollow is wonderful. A moving portrait of an imperfect American family, this novel is a world I got lost in. I enjoyed it hugely
Michelle Huneven is such an elegant, watchful writer, and she has immense love and compassion for her characters. This is a novel that lays bare the tenderness of the world, exploring its breadth and smallness at once. I adored it
Bug Hollow crackles with compassion and propulsion, offering the layered pleasures of the long view - the evolving fortunes and dynamics of a family across decades - without ever surrendering the texture of their days or the pulse of their trippy hearts, their capacity to surprise themselves and us. I inhaled this book in a weekend, grateful to feel it simmering and swirling inside me, regretting only that it would ever end. Michelle Huneven is a treasure, and Bug Hollow gives us the song of her sentences and the glorious telescope of her attention with a whittled, nimble intensity that took my breath away
Michelle Huneven gets under the skin and into the heart. Reading her is like calling your best friend for a long overdue catch up-confiding, clever and with the rush of connection that lucid, fine-tuned prose creates. Pages fly with phrasing so right it feels like you were born knowing it, and peopled with characters more real than seems possible. Michelle Huneven is sister in the blood to Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler and Tessa Hadley. If this is her sixth novel, I am in for the rest please
A wonderful novel. I enjoyed it so much
This book is beyond. I couldn't stop reading. Insightful and tender, the story of a beautiful, broken and quirky family who feel utterly real. I didn't want it to end
Michelle Huneven's wondrous and intimate journey of the Samuelson family embedded me with their deepest secrets, greatest loves, epic heartbreaks and a grief that touched them all for generations. Huneven's piercing observations of moments big and small left me feeling not just their witness, but more a distant relative emotionally invested in their outcome. I'm going to carry the Samuelsons in my heart for a very long time
Bug Hollow is a deeply immersive novel about a middle class, Californian family, with its closely held secrets, loves and tragedy. With the breadth of Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet Chronicles and the intimate ironic pleasures of Barbara Pym, Huneven spans the American century and at the center is a mysterious woman; brilliant, mean, held back by her time, harsh, and beloved. I couldn't put it down
Bug Hollow instantly seduces even the most news-addled reader with its lovely, lucid prose, its spot-on period details (those pay phones!) and superb gift for description . . . Something like a narrative love child of Alice Munro's novelistic short stories and Elizabeth Strout's novels of interconnected short stories . . . Huneven is exceptionally generous with all of her characters - even the hard-to-bear Sibyl - and remains a compassionate guide through the secrets and lies, betrayals and chance encounters, losses and disappointments that buffet this broken and remade family over time
Perfectly captures the unpredictability of life . . . With extraordinary candor and tenderness, Huneven shuffles through those raw months when hope feels like a cheat as the Samuelsons are unmade and remade by tragedy . . . Right down to its final moments, Huneven casually offers up little revelations that crunch as sweet and tart as pomegranate seeds
Huneven's bighearted family is bound together by the power of love, and doing right by each other
One of those gorgeous, sprawling family sagas I'm always desperately seeking (especially in the summer - nothing goes better with sand and sun than loving, multigenerational messiness). It's also one of the most satisfying reading experiences I've had in a long time . . . It's a novel that is hopeful without a trace of treacly fluff. Huneven has a knack for economical characterization - she makes more than a dozen points of view equally compelling and tender, with the expert deployment of the sulfurous smell of a hot spring, a marriage being saved by Dominoes. A thoroughly beautiful book
| Author | Michelle Huneven |
|---|---|
| Narrator | Emily Rankin |
| Duration | 7 hours and 47 minutes |
| Release Date | |
| ISBN | 9781399636872 |
| Format | Audiobook |
| Publisher | Orion |
| Genre | Fiction: general and literary |
| Availability | AU, GB, IE |
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