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Book Reviewed by:The third title in Roxane Gay Books' inaugural list, Hot Springs Drive is an urgent, vicious blade of a novel about a shocking betrayal and its aftermath, asking just how far you'll go to have everything you want
Jackie Stinson's best friend is dead, and everyone knows who killed her.
Jackie wants to be many things, but a martyr has never been one of them. She is an ex-emotional eater and mother of four, who has finally lost the weight she long yearned to be free of. In her new, sharp-edged body, she goes by Jacqueline. But leaving her old self behind proves harder than she ever imagined. And while she believes she should be happier, misery still chases her, and motherhood threatens to subsume what little is left of her.
Her only salve is her best friend Theresa, whose seemingly perfect life she desperately covets. Since they met in the maternity ward 15 years earlier, the two have survived the trials of motherhood side by side – Theresa with her quiet, cherubic daughter, and Jacqueline with her rambunctious, unruly boys. Their bond is tight, but it is not enough to keep Jacqueline, finally moving through the world in the body she has always wanted, from stealing a bit of Theresa's perfect life.
Hot Springs Drive is a dark, heart-pounding exploration of one woman's deepest desires, and how the consequences of betrayal can ripple outward beyond the initial strike point. In her third and fiercest novel, acclaimed literary voice Lindsay Hunter deftly peels back the fragile veneer of two suburban families and the secrets roiling between them.
This is not a murder mystery. We know Theresa will die from the beginning of the novel, and the author leaves easy-to-interpret clues about who the murderer is. Rather, this is a literary exploration of the fractures that can occur between friends and family members, and within an individual's mind, and how their accumulation can lead to tragedy. The whole collection of complex characters makes this book a treat. None of them are entirely likeable, but they feel so real. The teenage daughter who pulls away from her doting mother. The guy who is handsome, but too weird to keep a girlfriend for long. The man who feels dissatisfied, despite a successful job and loving family. We see these characters through their own eyes as well as each other's...continued
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(Reviewed by Jillian Bell).
In Hot Springs Drive, main characters Theresa and Jackie attend a dieting support group. In the United States, commercial diet plans like these are a big business. The research firm Custom Market Insights estimates the industry was worth $135.7 billion in 2022 and predicts that it will continue to grow, with Herbalife, NutriSystem and Weight Watchers pegged as some of the biggest players.
Fad and commercial diet plans have been around since at least the 19th century, and gained popularity in the 20th century. The 1950s and '60s saw some truly wild regimens. The "Drinking Man's Diet," one of the rare diet plans marketed to men, called for the consumption of fish, steak…and unlimited booze. The cabbage soup diet let dieters eat ...
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A.E. Osworth, author of We Are Watching Eliza Bright
I f**ing loved this. Thrilling and gorgeously observed, Hot Springs Drive surprises with both what the characters do and what they don't do, all with sentences as tightly spring-loaded as an over-tuned guitar string. Lindsay Hunter resists the call of murder-obsessed crime fiction vibes by subverting what we think of as the dramatic aspects of violence, death and punishment. She should be proud as hell and I can't wait for her next book.
