Customer Reviews

The Search for Peter Hunt

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The Search For Peter Hunt by Lynn C. Van Dine is an adventurous fictionalized biography about a dynamic twentieth-century artist. Born in 1896 in Jersey City, Peter Hunt reinvented his life and work as he matured through such experiences as serving in World War I, falling in love, and experimenting with numerous different styles and artistic talents. A fresh and vibrantly told narrative story, The Search For Peter Hunt is a very highly recommended and deftly written novel from beginning to end.

"Peter Hunt was a terrible--and wonderful--liar," Lynn C. Van Dine writes in The Search for Peter Hunt, the only available biography of the artist. Unfortunately, Van Dine follows Hunt's lead and presents a fictionalized version of his life story. While she is upfront about both the difficulty in documenting the details of Hunt's life, as well as her decision to write a fictionalized biography, her highly speculative approach is exasperating because it is impossible to gauge how much reality lies behind it. Although she spent years conducting research, her book, while clearly a labor of love, only scratches the surface of Hunt's story, leaving the reader hungry for more details about his life, his place within the community of Provincetown artists, and his relationships with well-known figures like the writer W. Somerset Maugham. In addition, the chapters are interleaved with "conversations" between the author and Peter Hunt's ghost, which further detract from the seriousness of the work. Van Dine is most effective in describing Hunt's method and in documenting how his style grew in popularity during the middle decades of the last century. Her book provides tantalizing hints about Hunt's personal life and his relationships with other artists, writers, and social luminaries, but the historical context is sketchy and ultimately the book merely highlights the lack of serious scholarship on this influential but overlooked artist.