The Night Listener

By: Armistead Maupin

Narrated by: Armistead Maupin

Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Few storytellers in America write with such unerring insight and honesty as Armistead Maupin. Now he has given us his most ambitious and daringly imaginative work, The Night Listener, a novel as spoken-word serial, including an original music score.

Gabriel Noone is a fabulist, a writer whose late-night radio tales have brought him into the homes of millions. In the midst of a painful, unwanted separation from his longtime love, Gabriel reads the extraordinary memoir of Pete Lomax, an ailing 13-year-old boy who suffered horrific abuse at the hands of his parents. Pete is not only a gifted diarist but also a devoted listener of Gabriel's show. And thus begins an extraordinary phone friendship.

Then, out of the blue, troubling new questions arise, exploding Gabriel's comfortable assumptions and causing his ordered existence to spin wildly out of control. As he walks a vertiginous line between truth and illusion, he is finally forced to confront all his relationships - familial, romantic, and erotic.

This unprecedented audio project is as thought-provoking as it is mesmeric. The Night Listener is a meditation on the power of voices and the faith we place in them, and an extraordinary audio experience from an American literary icon.

©2000 Literary Bent LLC (P)2000 HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

Critic reviews

"Filled with twists and turns that rival The Sixth Sense and The Crying Game, Maupin's new novel is a deceptively simple page-turner perfectly suited for the audio format....Not only is it a book that listeners will want to discuss with friends, but once finished and all is revealed, it's likely people will want to listen to it again with a fresh ear to hear the clues that have been planted along the way....Audio is the perfect medium for this born storyteller." (Publishers Weekly)

Just Right

The weave is next to perfect, the story is great, the idea is intelligent and i liked the chosen point of view and the bottom line.
I also appreciated the gentle line drawn between reality and fiction.
Maupin decided to take the idenditying point of view, instead of the rational point of view he probably would have taken in real life. He tried to weave and find in himself the human sensitivities that might make one "gullible" at times.

I enjoyed this narration very much and fell for Armistead Maupin.
(i gave it 4 stars instead of 5 since it's not exactly literary fiction).

somewhat disappointed

the ending left me wanting more... not in a good way. luckily I used a free credit

Cool story from a different point of view.

This is a fun read with some very beautiful moments told from a different POV than my own. I liked it a lot.

Excellent!!

Wonderful read. The included article by Tad Friend "The Electrifying True Story..." is very good too, but it has an audio bug at 1:01:12, simply blanks out for a few seconds.

Fantastic writing as always

Maupin is such an incredible author! The honesty and clarity are striking. The depth of even minor characters is compelling. Almost everything he writes is relevant and necessary. Truly one of the best of our time.

I want more!

I really liked the story, I loved Armstead reading it. Lots of nice twists throughout the entire book. Keep writing, please. I'm looking forward to the next one.
The only thing I'd change is to get rid of the sappy music between chapters. I'd rather have dead time - I think the music takes away from the flow of the story. Please consider leaving off the music next time

The Night Listener

What a wonderful book. Armistead's writting keeps you on the edge. The way he establishes characters and place keeps you in the action. This book is filled with clever quotes and classic one-liners. A must read.

Another Great Read by Armistead Maupin!!

Absolutely loved this read! A must have for your collection! He really nailed this one!

Wonderful!

This is a terrific story, and Maupin is a wonderful reader. There's much more to it than the reviews suggest; reading it as a thriller or mystery doesn't do the book justice (though that would be fun, too). Highly recommended.

Only 1 problem...

It's such a mistake to have allowed Armistead Maupin to read his own book. He's not a great reader in general, but here it's very confusing to have him present his own material because it's based on actual events that have been elsewhere reported. One ends up wishing he'd just written a memoir, since he injects himself so heavily into the story by acting as its interpreter.