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HIDE

Matt Griffin

A heartbreaking and sometimes funny love story set in the woods of North Carolina. HIDE offers an original take on the domestic novel.

Set in a declining textile town in North Carolina, HIDE is the love story of Wendell Wilson, a taxidermist, and Frank Clifton, a veteran of World War II. They meet after the war, in a time when such love holds real danger. But, severing nearly all ties with the rest of the world, they carve out a home for themselves on the outskirts of town and for decades the routine of self-reliant domesticity -- Wendell's cooking, Frank's care for a yard no one sees, and the vicarious drama of courtroom TV -- seems to protect them. But when Wendell finds Frank lying motionless outside at the age of eighty-three, their carefully crafted life together begins to unravel. As Frank's physical strength deteriorates and his memory dissolves, Wendell struggles in vain to keep him healthy and to hold onto the man he once knew until, faced with giving care beyond his capacity, he must come to terms with the consequences of half a century in seclusion, the sacrifices they made for each other, and the different lives they might have lived -- and most especially the impending, inexorable loss of the one they had. Impossibly tender, gently funny, and gorgeously rendered, HIDE is a singularly powerful debut. Iowa MFA Matt Griffin has crafted a poignant debut novel, steeped in the art of taxidermy and the elderly couple’s love of live courtroom.

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Book Published 2016-02-16 by Bloomsbury

Comments

“A masterful novel. Every page aches with life.”

“Reading Matt Griffin’s HIDE, I kept saying to myself ‘at last!’: a novel that follows the trajectory of a marriage (in fact if not in name) between two men over the course of decades, and does so with grit, humor, and compassion! HIDE is a welcome and important work.”

“Matthew Griffin has crafted his characters through the eyes of a long-enduring love, one that encompasses joy and bitterness, hope and heartache. His setting is beautifully detailed, a landscape painted with attractive vistas and homey delights….Griffin delivers a novel robust with flavor and brimming with passion.”

“Deliberately paced, thoughtful story of men in love over many years against considerable odds…[it] feels genuine, recounting the love of two very different people made to live in fear but who endure with considerable dignity…readers will want to hear more from Griffin.

“…something like a small miracle: a bittersweet portrait of love in the shadows.” (starred)

“Tough but compassionate and beautifully observed, Matthew Griffin’s debut novel is an unflinching look at the cost of isolation in an intolerant society and a moving story about the persistence of love.”

“A great love story.”