• The Last Days of Dogtown

  • A Novel
  • By: Anita Diamant
  • Narrated by: Kate Nelligan
  • Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
  • 3.7 out of 5 stars (379 ratings)

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The Last Days of Dogtown  By  cover art

The Last Days of Dogtown

By: Anita Diamant
Narrated by: Kate Nelligan
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Publisher's summary

Set on Cape Ann in the early 1800s, The Last Days of Dogtown is peopled by widows, orphans, spinsters, scoundrels, whores, free Africans, and "witches". Nearly a decade ago, Diamant found an account of an abandoned rural backwater near the Massachusetts coastline at the turn of the nineteenth century. That pamphlet inspired a stunning novel about a small group of eccentrics and misfits, struggling in a harsh, isolated landscape only fifty miles north of Boston, yet a world away.

Among the inhabitants of Dogtown are Black Ruth, an African woman who dresses as a man and works as a stone mason; Mrs. Stanley, an imperious madam whose grandson, Sammy, comes of age in her rural brothel; Oliver Younger, who survives a miserable childhood at the hands of a very strange aunt; and Cornelius Finson, a freed slave whose race denies him everything. At the center of it all is Judy Rhines, a fiercely independent soul, deeply lonely, who nonetheless builds a life for herself and inspires those around her to become more generous and tolerant themselves.

©2005 Anita Diamant (P)2005 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved. AUDIOWORKS is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division.

Critic reviews

  • 2005 Audie Award Nominee, Solo Narration (Female)

"Poignant, beautifully written. Diamant's fans won't be surprised to see that she continues to excel at creating memorable characters." (Boston Magazine)

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    2 out of 5 stars

Disappointing

I was a huge fan of ‘The Red Tent’, but this was a disappointing follow up book. There was crude language and lacked a true ‘plot.’ I was able to listen to the entire book, with hopes that it would redeem itself, but no luck.

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