Ellen and the Barber

By: Edith Carlson O'Rourke

Narrated by: Mary Woods

Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

Vividly evoking a small mid-west town during the Great Depression and World War II, Ellen and the Barber introduces us to three strong and surprising young women and the men in their lives: Ellen, who has no good reason to deny her natural instincts; Miriam, torn between the promise of a loving future and the demands of family and home; and Vera, whose intelligence and restless hunger for life plunges her into disaster.

Around these three vibrant young women, O’Rourke has created a town so real and convincing that the listener experiences a sense of déjà vu. Through dust storms and drought, economic depression and the lingering demise of small farming, Prohibition and the war that took its young men, the town and its people let us live and laugh and sometimes cry with it.

©1998 Edith Carlson O'Rourke (P)2000 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“By narrating rather than dramatizing, Woods lets the subtlety and rich texture of the writing hold center stage…She sets a strong pace, parsing through long and complex (but elegant) sentences with a care and expression that does justice to the author’s style and guides the listener well.” ( AudioFile)