Three Junes

A Novel

By: Julia Glass

Narrated by: John Keating

Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Three Junes is a vividly textured symphonic novel set on both sides of the Atlantic during three fateful summers in the lives of a Scottish family.

In June of 1989, Paul McLeod, the recently widowed patriarch, becomes infatuated with a young American artist while traveling through Greece and is compelled to relive the secret sorrows of his marriage. Six years later, Paul’s death reunites his sons at Tealing, their idyllic childhood home, where Fenno, the eldest, faces a choice that puts him at the center of his family’s future.

A lovable, slightly repressed gay man, Fenno leads the life of an aloof expatriate in the West Village, running a shop filled with books and birdwatching gear. He believes himself safe from all emotional entanglements - until a worldly neighbor presents him with an extraordinary gift and a seductive photographer makes him an unwitting subject. Each man draws Fenno into territories of the heart he has never braved before, leading him toward an almost unbearable loss that will reveal to him the nature of love.

Love in its limitless forms - between husband and wife, between lovers, between people and animals, between parents and children - is the force that moves these characters’ lives, which collide again, in yet another June, over a Long Island dinner table. This time it is Fenno who meets and captivates Fern, the same woman who captivated his father in Greece ten years before. Now pregnant with a son of her own, Fern, like Fenno and Paul before him, must make peace with her past to embrace her future.

Elegantly detailed yet full of emotional suspense, often as comic as it is sad, Three Junes is a glorious triptych about how we learn to live, and live fully, beyond incurable grief and betrayals of the heart - how family ties, both those we’re born into and those we make, can offer us redemption and joy.

©2002 by Julia Glass
(P)2002 by Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Julia Glass' talent just sends chills up my spine; her novel is a marvel." (Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls)
"Has the rich pleasures of a 19th-century novel and the rush of New York life of the last ten years. I'm amazed it's a first novel - it is a mature, captivating work of fiction." (John Casey, author of The Half-life of Happiness)
"Almost threatens to burst with all the life it contains...extraordinary." (Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours)

Great Middle Story

This novel is divided in to three shorter stories, all related. The first part is good (3 out of 5), but I thoroughly enjoyed the longer middle story. The author uses time to her advantage and bounces back and forth between the past and present with an appealing result. The middle I give 4.5 out of 5. The last part is short, but pleasant (again, 3 out of 5). Overall, very enjoyable at 4 out of 5

A Wonderful Story-Teller Shows Off Her Skills

What a fantastic book. Ms. Glass enthrals as she artfully and deftly weaves past and present, father and son, young and old into a single masterful "over-tale" of the circle of life and death and love and loss. The author's beautiful style and rich text seem effortless and her character development is amazingly real, not just believable or convincing but Real - so much that you find yourself disbelieving that these characters don't truly exist. The three dimensional textures in which she paints her cast are awesome and reason enough to have a read.
Complaints I've seen in other reviews of this book about the Scottish accent being too thick for understanding and confusion over timeline of events at first are typical of any book on tape with a well rendered reading such as this one. It will always be harder to understand a book on tape than a paper book as you cannot go at your own speed, but it's well worth it here for the incredible reading by the narrator. Each character is instantly recognizable by his / her voice, and the depth of emotion is worthy of an able actor.
If you, like one other reader / reviewer of this book, are a puratanical sort, offended or scared by the mere presence of a homosexual theme in a story, you may be scared by this book. However, if you are slightly to fully open minded you'll find that this element serves mostly to underscore the alienation felt by the main character from his family and is never exploitative, graphic, or overtly sexual in nature.
Well done Ms. Glass, Brava, we look forward to your next effort!

Interesting and compelling story

I struggled a bit to get into the story as I had some trouble with the heavy Scottish accent but I came to appreciate it as the story drew me in. It is in fact a lovely loving story of family and differences about which we all need to think.

Not for the car

This was a difficult book to listen to in the car but it might be nice to hear it relaxing at home. But who has the time? I liked the reader but I kept getting lost and sometimes it was hard to understand while driving.

good, though mixed feelings

Overall, a decent listen, though I found the American voices to be one voice, really, and some of the gay characters a little too stereotypical to have any substance as characters

Great narrator

I loved the book even if it didn't have a plot. The characters were brought to life by the narrator who seems able to do so many accents. I couldn't tell until the credits which one was his true accent.

Loved It

This is now one of my favorite books of all times. AND is read beautifully.

Okay, but not great.

I can't say that I disliked the book, but neither can I say I really liked it. It took awhile to get used to the narrators accent, but eventually I did and it added to story. The plot was poignant, intriguing, and sometimes heartwrenching. It just didn't come together for me. A bit melancholy and morose. Somewhat disjointed. Worth a try, you might like it more than I did.

Three Junes

Written in a manner that gives you a personal view of the main character. I enjoyed this book immensely. I found the ending particularly good and it definately give an insight to the entire book and character. Wonderful book.

It takes some time to get into it.

Requires attentive listening due to constant time shifts but found myself wanting to re-listen by the end.