The Tiger's Wife

A Novel

By: Tea Obreht

Narrated by: Susan Duerden, Robin Sachs

Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

National Book Award Finalist and New York Times best seller...

“Spectacular...[Téa Obreht] spins a tale of such marvel and magic in a literary voice so enchanting that the mesmerized reader wants her never to stop.” (Entertainment Weekly)

Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, the youngest of The New Yorker’s 20 best American fiction writers under 40, has spun a timeless novel that will establish her as one of the most vibrant, original authors of her generation.

In a Balkan country mending from war, Natalia, a young doctor, is compelled to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. Searching for clues, she turns to his worn copy of The Jungle Book and the stories he told her of his encounters over the years with “the deathless man.” But most extraordinary of all is the story her grandfather never told her - the legend of the tiger’s wife.

Named one of the best books of the year by: The Wall Street Journal, O: The Oprah Magazine; The Economist; Vogue; Slate; Chicago Tribune; The Seattle Times; Dayton Daily News; Publishers Weekly; Alan Cheuse, NPR’s All Things Considered.

“Stunning...a richly textured and searing novel.” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times)

“[Obreht] has a talent for subtle plotting that eludes most writers twice her age, and her descriptive powers suggest a kind of channeled genius.... No novel [this year] has been more satisfying.” (The Wall Street Journal)

“Filled with astonishing immediacy and presence, fleshed out with detail that seems firsthand, The Tiger’s Wife is all the more remarkable for being the product not of observation but of imagination.” (The New York Times Book Review)

“That The Tiger’s Wife never slips entirely into magical realism is part of its magic.... Its graceful commingling of contemporary realism and village legend seems even more absorbing.” (The Washington Post)

©2011 Tea Obreht (P)2011 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Stunning...a richly textured and searing novel.” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times)

“[Obreht] has a talent for subtle plotting that eludes most writers twice her age, and her descriptive powers suggest a kind of channeled genius.... No novel [this year] has been more satisfying.” (The Wall Street Journal)

“That The Tiger’s Wife never slips entirely into magical realism is part of its magic.... Its graceful commingling of contemporary realism and village legend seems even more absorbing.” (The Washington Post)

Amazing prose

This author can turn a phrase, and weave the multi dimensional storylines. A total Wowza! You will dream this book

Not entirely hype

This book and its author have been promoted tirelessly by publisher and critics alike. Since my own family is Slovenian, I caved and downloaded it. I enjoyed it very much, but look forward to the author's more mature works. Beautifully written and narrated, it takes a while to register that the characters and the story are not quite filled out -- the secrets, the entwined folktale/history do not quite pay off. But could anyone write a book this ambitious at 25? Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) the Balkans will yield decades of material for this talented writer.

A wonderful story.......

The characters are so well drawn, that you would think you were living
in their towns with them.. The symbolism is so absorbing and
so multi-dimensional; the story provides an enormous amount of food
for thought...This is what you call a good read!

Mesmerizing

I really, really enjoyed the book. Interesting, moving stories, well developed characters. Story like a dream slowly unraveling, bitter and sweet, tragic and inevitable.

Both readers did a superb job.

I understand that for some people it might be confusing, drawn out and unnecessarily complicated. But I wanted it to never end.

Storytelling at its Best

What did you like best about The Tiger's Wife? What did you like least?

I liked the descriptive verse, although at times it was a bit tedious and ongoing. The folklore was fascinating, yet sad that people could be so naive and stubborn in their misguided beliefs.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Tiger's Wife?

My favorite part was the father narrating the story about the undead man. Great story teling.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

I thoroughly enjoyed the male narrator, but the female narrator was less interesting.

Do you think The Tiger's Wife needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No, I think it ended perfectly, leaving the reader to ponder if the granddaughter ever meets up with the undead man and confirm he has the book.

Any additional comments?

Overall, a little long, but loved the story.

Dreadful reading

This review is only about the female reader (not the male reader or the book). I cannot judge the book fairly since I found the audio so bad. She literally chanted the entire book with the same something-momentous-is-about-to happen cadence. It tended to make descriptive background into tedious, overly dramatic foreground. I got the feeling that she was an incredibly talented mimic who was able to read the English text with a flawless British accent even though she didn’t understand a word of it.

Not worthy of the hype

What did you like best about The Tiger's Wife? What did you like least?

The book was impressive for such a young author but I found it hard to get through and often dull.

What about Susan Duerden and Robin Sachs ’s performance did you like?

They were great narrators. They were as good as an oscar winning actor.

Any additional comments?

This book wasn't what it was hyped to be. Its well narrated but the story its self I found to be dull and I could have done without reading it.

A magical, engrossing tale of a torn country

The reader is transported back and forth in time and place between mysterious and wondrous tales of tigers, a deathless man, the tiger's wife, a bear hunter, a foreign apothecary, and a country torn apart by recurring wars. Peopled by both a sophisticated, liberal urban population and backwards, superstitious peasants, the former Yugoslavia is the home of diverse ethnic, religious groups, rich musical traditions, political unrest and the devastation of wars - from without and within. Told by a young woman doctor, granddaughter to a famous doctor who served his countrymen irrespective of the ethnic-religious divides, the reader is carried along an undulating journey into fact, fantasy, fear and love. At the end the reader wonders aloud - what is true and what is fiction? What is tale and what is history? And what will be the futures of the new nations that have emerged from the ashes that were?
And who was the tiger's wife?
An outstanding literary achievement brilliantly and engrossingly narrated.

Interesting Story

Recommended for the folk tale quality and good narration. the character development was well received the plot enjoyable.

unfortunate choice for narrators

You would think that it would make sense to get people who actually speak the language that the book features to narrate it, or maybe the non-native-speaking people reading the book would take the time to learn to pronounce some of the simplest words that the book features over and over again (Bako, specifically) and yet...