Etta and Otto and Russell and James (Hooper)

Book Reviews
Hooper…has more or less nailed the Amélie charm with this sweet, disarming story of lasting love…Hooper shows great restraint in balancing the quirky with the universal, blurring the lines between them…[Her] steady hand creates the perfect setup for the unexpected.
Regina Marler - New York Times Book Review


Hooper places us in a world that doesn’t entirely overlap with our own, and the novel is perhaps best read as an extended fairytale—in the wild, Etta meets James, a coyote who talks and sings cowboy songs when no one else is around. But the story is grounded firmly enough in the real world to maintain suspense as we wonder what will become of Etta—the scenes of her struggles with near-starvation in the wilderness are harrowing.
Guardian (UK)


Quirky, offbeat... Modern life is full of people spouting rubbish about spurious emotional and spiritual "journeys." Etta's trek as she comes to the end of her life and reckons with the past, has, in contrast, a real and worthwhile dignity to it.
Financial Times


[Hooper’s] crisp, unadorned prose beautifully captures her characters' sentiments, and conveys with compassion but also a degree of distance their experiences of love and pain, longing and loss… this novel pulsates with an energy that can best be described as raw but also highly restrained.
Chicago Tribune


Heartfelt… In simple, graceful prose, Hooper has woven a tale of deep longing, for reinvention and self-discovery, as well as for the past and for love and for the boundless unknown.
San Francisco Chronicle


Hooper has conjured a character who is a gift… As the lines blur between Etta’s and Otto’s memories, and even between their physical bodies, readers emerge with a deeper appreciation for life and for its suffering against its backdrop of majesty.
Dallas Morning News


A bit like a fairy tale, Etta and Otto and Russell and James is whimsical, even magical. A bit like the Canadian prairie, it is spare, yet beautiful.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram


Fictional journeys toward enlightenment and self-discovery fill miles of book shelves, but few are as freshly told as the road trip traced in Etta and Otto and Russell and James…. It’s filled with magical realism, whimsy and the idea that you’re never too old to take risks.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune


In this haunting debut, set in a starkly beautiful landscape, Hooper delineates the stories of Etta and the men she loved (Otto and Russell) as they intertwine through youth and wartime and into old age. It’s a lovely book you’ll want to linger over.
People


(Starred review.) Hooper’s arresting debut novel, with its spare, evocative prose, seamlessly interweaves accounts of the present-day lives of its eponymous main characters with the stories of their pasts and how they first connected with each other.... Hooper...reveals the extraordinary lengths to which people will go in the name of love.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Hooper’s spare, evocative prose dips in and out of reality and travels between past and present creating what Etta tells Otto is "just a long loop." This is a quietly powerful story whose dreamlike quality lingers long after the last page is turned.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Drawing on wisdom and whimsy of astonishing grace and maturity, Hooper has written an irresistibly enchanting debut novel that explores mysteries of love old and new, the loyalty of animals and dependency of humans, the horrors of war and perils of loneliness, and the tenacity of time and fragility of memory.
Booklist


(Starred review.) Hooper’s debut is a novel of memory and longing and desires too long denied…To a Cormac McCarthy–like narrative—sans quotation marks, featuring crisp, concise conversations—Hooper adds magical realism…. The book ends with sheer poetry…A masterful near homage to Pilgrim’s Progress: souls redeemed through struggle.
Kirkus Reviews