In the Garden of the North American Martyrs

By: Tobias Wolff

Narrated by: Anthony Heald

Length: 25 mins

Publisher's summary

Tobias Wolff's masterful short story about one woman's quiet revenge on the pomposity and arrogance of academia.

Meticulous, funny, eccentric - Mary has always been mindful of the complex role she plays as a professor of history. Her lectures are carefully written out beforehand; her departmental loyalties ambiguous. She is so careful, in fact, that she began to see herself as flat, dull, and lifeless.

The closing of Brandon College, the institution she'd spent more than fifteen years at, changes everything. Forced to find another position, Mary finds herself at an experimental college in rainy Oregon. Sickly and unhappy, Mary feels as if she's dying - until a letter from an old colleague holds promises of a bright future. Louise works for a prestigious school in upstate New York and wants to help her secure a position there. Excited, Mary flies across the country for an interview. But things aren't as they seem, and Mary, disenchanted with Louise's vanity and the futility of the university, for once, throws caution to the wind.

©1981 Tobias Wolff (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Loved it!

I listened to almost all of these short stories by Tobias Wolff on Audible and this one is the best! I even went right back and listened again.

Just a little longer, please!

I wanted the ending to be a little longer into the story! Would love to hear more of what Mary had to say. And what happened after she was done saying it.

Okay story

This was an okay story about a professor who tries to get a job a new school and finds out she's being taken for a ride. The narrator's voice was good for this story; I feel this narrator is good at reading stories about older women. The narrator's friend Louise was insane. It ended too abruptly for my preference; I wanted to find out what happened next. A lot of these stories in this collection are like that, though. Just slice of life vignettes that don't really go anywhere.

Acerbic, hilarious, and exacting

Tobias Wolff never ceases to amaze me with his considered characters and undeniable sense of humor.

Wolff's depiction of North American academia is acerbic and hilarous in this story about a professor's journey to and during a job interview.

Although Louise is not a serious candidate for the professorial position, she did not realize that hard, cold fact until a few painstaking moments before she was scheduled to deliver a mostly plagiarized lecture. Her revenge is exacting and deliciously sweet.

Throughout Louise's journey, we meet and hear from a body of martyrs whose inner lives clash with hers. She is a people pleaser, after all. Incessant whining, braggadocious ramblings, and compliment fishing litter this brief moment in Louise's life, a character who simply wants to get a new job and feel at ease with life.

4-star rating for themes and a spectacular ending.

In the Garden

I finally found a story from this author that I enjoyed immensely. great job! I loved that this character fought back against the blatant sex discrimination in a strong and surprising way.1

Deceptive Audiobook Less Than A Half Hour

The recorded audiobook “In The Garden of North American Martyrs” is only one narrated STORY. It is not an audioBOOK. Listeners expect twelve stories in Wolff’s book entitled “In The Garden of The North American Martyrs.” Woolf deserves more than to have only one story recorded.