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A Family Romance
- Narrated by: Fiona Shaw
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Release date: 01-09-12
- Language: English
- Publisher: Audible Studios
Regular price: $17.76
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Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in upper class New York City. Newland Archer, gentleman lawyer and heir to one of New York City's best families, is happily anticipating a highly desirable marriage to the sheltered and beautiful May Welland. Yet he finds reason to doubt his choice of bride after the appearance of Countess Ellen Olenska, May's exotic, beautiful 30-year-old cousin, who has been living in Europe. This novel won the first ever Pulitzer awarded to a woman.
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Everyone else knows the truth about you. Now you can know it, too. That's the slogan. The product: a junky contraption that tattoos personalized revelations on its users' forearms. It's an old con, playing on the fear that we are obvious to everybody except ourselves. This particular one's been circulating New York since the 1960s. The ad works. And, oddly enough, so might the device....
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Publisher's Summary
As the solitary child of mild and gentle parents, Jane is fascinated and astounded by her exotically European aunt, Dolly.
Dolly’s ways are certainly not her parents’ ways, yet she is an object of interest and dread to her beleaguered relatives. It is clear that they have nothing in common: Jane feels no affection for Dolly, and Dolly clearly dislikes children.
Yet the two are fated to go through life in uneasy harness, until such time as their alliance is accepted by both as not only inevitable, but as something of great value.
Read by Fiona Shaw.
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- Zaubermond
- 08-19-14
Hello, Dolly.
Jane Manning is a characteristic Brookner protagonist: rather shy, intelligent, sensitive, and by design and circumstance, rather alone in the world. Her aunt, Dolly, is a great contrast to her: maddeningly self-absorbed, designing, intriguing, and glamorous. Her many faults do not keep her niece from caring very much what happens to her.
In a culture of oversharing, where the facile observation is mistaken for wit, I find myself looking to writers like Brookner more often. Her depth of psychological wisdom and beautiful voice shine all the brighter by contrast.
Of course, she is not for everyone. But she may be for you.
If you are someone who values her privacy and independence, if you require "a ruminative space," as Brookner puts it, you may find solace here. Perhaps you learned your hardest lessons early in life and designed your life accordingly, determined to live on your own terms as many Brookner heroines do. If so, you will know what it is to be alone within the crowd, the observer at the party, knowing what it is to remain "the other" even if you are on stage. She speaks to those of us who know these truths, and we listen to her voice in awe.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Steve M
- 05-18-15
One of Brookner's Best
A beautifully written story of loss and loneliness that is at times funny and as always with Brookner, tremendously
Insightful and witty. Fiona Shaw brings it to life with her vivid, restrained narration.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- DMC
- Chicago and Lakeport, CA
- 02-07-15
A very fine writer
Beautifully read, this is a story of what it is to learn to love those who are before us. Anita Brookner travels meticulously with her characters through time, revealing changes through time, uncovering qualities expected and unexpected.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- momwifesq
- 07-09-16
Very true to novel
I have read all of the Brookner canon. The narrator of this novel is wonderfully British and authentic. A poignant escape.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful