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)

Beautiful Narration of a Wonderful Story!

Delightfully written, true to life & completely believable characters make this the best "read" I've had in a long time. The narration with the brogue really completes it. My only complaint is that the book goes from past to present & back again very frequently & can be hard to follow (especially at first, till you figure out what's going on). It doubtlessly would have been easier to follow on paper.

Honestly, this has been my best find here, I highly recommend it!

Boring

I tried three different times to listen to this book, the last time listening to over three hours
of very confusing text. It skips from past to present so quickly that you're not sure where
you are and top that off with the narrator's brogue that is so heavy at times that you can't
understand what he is even saying.
I do not recommend at all.

three junes

I felt the format was pretentious, and although I forced myself to invest several hours in this award winning lightweight I could not continue. The characters meant nothing to me. I rest my case.

Way better than I expected

Some of the reviews here made me hesitate, but I thought I'd give the book a try. I am so glad I did. I am now on my second listen, just to savor it again.

Ms. Glass has written some of the most original and apt metaphors that get at the true meaning of an experience. For example, she describes a character's (Fenno's) feeling when he finally discovers that he has been making a long-term mistake in having a relationship with someone (Tony): she describes him as having been drinking water for so long only to learn, late, that it was really just saltwater. Another metaphor describes the "epileptic" flashes of TV light seen from outside a window. Those are metaphors that make me say "yes, yes! that's true!"

The people who won't like this book are probably 2 types: a) they just don't normally relate to gay men, and don't want to (one gay man's complicated friend/family/love life is the central "middle" story here); and b) they don't want to have to do the mental work of paying attention to which time period the story currently is situated in. It is a bit hard at times, but I didn't find it too complicated; there are always enough clues. The book works better this way, too: by taking you into the future just a bit, you can pre-appreciate the impact of the past even before you have fully experienced the past.

Let me just say, too, that this may be the first "gay men in NY during the AIDS crisis" story that I have "read" in which I truly, truly cared for the characters and felt myself moved to tears.

Better Read than Listen?

I'd have a hard time recommending this as an audio book. I believe it would be a better read than listen. In my case, while driving, I found the audio book a bit too difficult to listen to, found myself rewinding too often to re-listen to many things that I couldn't catch the first time, either due to the Scottish accent of the narrator, the fact the book jumps back and forth between scenes, or the elaborate language. It's funny, but after completing the whole book, I went back and re-listed to the first 2 hours, and it was as if I had never heard it before. Nonetheless, the second time around, it all made much more sense, however I still believe it is an awkward beginning.

As a whole, this book is about the McLeod family, and primarily about Fenno. Then, about 3/4 of the way through, the storyline just drops off and goes on to discuss Fern. I cannot understand how this did not get edited out. I did not care for this character at this point, and kept asking myself, "but what about Fenno?" This event made the book entirely unbalanced. Sure, Fenno's and Fern's lives intersect, but did Fern's entire history add value to understanding their relationship? - I do not think so. The publisher's summary that Fern "must make peace with her past to embrace her future" is simply putting varnish on the weak part of the book. In my opinion, it was simply a story that the writer could simply not throw out, and the overall story suffers for it.

Overall, the book contains volumes of beautifully written prose. Indeed, Julia Glass does paint wonderful pictures of "love in its limitless forms." Regarding the actual audio format, the narrator is both a blessing and barrier, his different accents and inflections help the listener distinguish between characters and often adds color and charm, but at the same time the Scottish accent can be difficult to understand. Additionally, the book would have greatly benefited from a distinct pause when jumping from one scene to another.

My first audiobook - and still a favorite

Julia Glass’ National Book Award winner holds the distinction of being my very first audiobook. And thank goodness for that – I don’t know if I’d be as hooked on listening if I hadn’t been so charmed by John Keating’s lilting performance of this moving family saga (featuring the loveable Fenno who fulfills my own dream of running a bookstore).

Great Performance, Wonderful Book

I so much enjoyed listening to the "Three Junes". The narrator was excellent and really added to the pleasure of the text. He used multiple voices, accents and intonations that helped to give each character distinct identity and personality in the way that maintained a good deal of interest in a book containing a significant amount of dialogue.

The story itself is a fascinating one with multiple levels and complexities that made it suspenseful even without much of a plot--it's more of a character and issue study and a rumination on fate. Yet I continually looked forward to getting into the car to hear more. The Three 'Junes' are three separate views of the same family/experiences/perspectives narrated by three different individuals whose lives and fates are interwoven at three different instances in time, always in June.

I highly recommend this book whose literary quality is rare among books published today for its discussion of major moral issues in a way that suggests the original purpose of the novel as it developed to its height in the 19th century. It provides multiple ways of seeing the same issue among parents and children, siblings and friends, and pushes one to step into the shoes of another on 'big issues' in such a way as to sympathize with even the most disagreeable character. Unlike much modern literature stuck at being a text about a text, the book addresses the moral issues of our time as they are lived by normal people who nonetheless live the 'examined' life.

Three Junes

This is my first review after literally dozens and dozens of listens. I've been tempted to write reviews before - so, this doesn't mean this is the best I've listened to. But - it was a great listen. I didn't want to reach the end - I grew that much interested in these people's lives. If you're interested in a narrative about relationships between spouses, lovers, siblings, pet owners and pets, you will enjoy this book, The narration was excellent.

Three Junes

I had no idea that this book was about homosexuality. I do not care to read about or see homosexuality. I do not care that some follow this practice, it is just of no interest to me and I do not feel comfortable hearing about it or seeing it on the screen. Sorry, this is just my preference, do not recommend any further books on this subject to me as this was not something I liked.

A great book with many layers.

This book is teeming with its relationships and interconnected lives. The three interrelating, but separate stories are all wonderfully written. Some books lend themselves better to audio than others and this is defently one of them. I found myself relistening a few times and picking up more from the book each time.