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The Night Listener  By  cover art

The Night Listener

By: Armistead Maupin
Narrated by: Armistead Maupin
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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.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: LGBTQ+

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)

What listeners say about The Night Listener

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

revolting

I got a quarter of the way through it and could not finish. One of the few audio books I have deleted without finishing. Gratuitous subject matter and not presented in a particularly interesting or literary way. It does not deserve a star.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

what the ....

I wasn't sure where this book was going - was it suppposed to be a mystery or not? I kept thinking that the characters should've slapped the author for constantly drifting off on ever increasing tangents. And the ending? I like a little resolution in my stories. Thumbs down.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

A Rare Turnoff

I'm a real "finish what I start" person, but I have to concede defeat in this case. Although straight, I'm not a homophobe. I have numberous gay & lesbian friends and clients, but neither they nor I flaunt our preferences with "in-your-face" descriptions of our intimate activities...and we know each other.

The story premise is interersting, maybe even compelling, but the crassness of the narrative really turned me off.

Be prepared! Better yet, find another listen.

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