Inland

A Novel

De: Téa Obreht

Narrado por: Anna Chlumsky, Edoardo Ballerini, Euan Morton

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • “A bracingly epic and imaginatively mythic journey across the American West” (Entertainment Weekly), from the celebrated author of The Tiger’s Wife and The Morningside

“Obreht’s simple but rich prose captures and luxuriates in the West’s beauty and sudden menace.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Town & Country, The New York Public Library, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, BookPage

In the lawless, drought-ridden lands of the Arizona Territory in 1893, two extraordinary lives unfold. Nora is an unflinching frontierswoman awaiting the return of the men in her life—her husband, who has gone in search of water for the parched household, and her elder sons, who have vanished after an explosive argument. Lurie is a former outlaw and a man haunted by ghosts. He sees lost souls who want something from him, and he finds reprieve from their longing in an unexpected relationship that inspires a momentous expedition across the West.

Mythical, lyrical, and sweeping in scope, Inland is grounded in true but little-known history. It showcases all of Téa Obreht’s talents as a writer, as she subverts and reimagines the myths of the American West, making them entirely—and unforgettably—her own.

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction

Great writing

4 1/2 stars. The reading starts with a narrator whose cadences and accent are perfect for the subject matter and excellent prose. Unfortunately, when the female voice starts, it’s as if a high-pitched clanging started; without inflection, the words are simply clipped off the page without storytelling or southern accent ability. Nevertheless, Obreht is an excellent writer, and her sweeping tale captures the atmosphere of her chosen era/location. It doesn’t have a sharp story arc, or a lot of plot; this is more for those who enjoy meandering through well-evoked times/places/circumstances they’ve not experienced in their own lives.

Hypnotic and beautiful

Tea captures the bleak and haunting lives of her characters, and the desolate majesty of their landscapes in a style reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy. Beneath the seemingly stagnant surface of their hard lives there runs a turbulent current of changing times and tragedy. This book was absolutely mesmerizing!

A long, slow burn and a terrific ride

I feel that the author spent a long time teasing open the layers of my heart, then sweetly and gently plunged a sword into it. I found this book riveting, moving and painful. It's a marvelous and fascinating story and I loved the magical aspects. Edoardo Ballerini is fabulous. I had a much harder time with Anna Chlumsky's narration for the first third or half of the book, but she improved constantly and by the end I was enjoying it. For a long time she kept reading commas as though they were question marks, so that the flow? is really interrupted? and everything feels stunted and uncertain? Thankfully she lost that toward the end, and the flow of the prose was much improved. It's an extremely engrossing and compelling story.

That was a lot of fun!

I think at its core, this is a story about family and how death and other hardships shape its overall dynamic.

Throughout this book you'll be drawn into their lives, past and present, until both their worlds meet. It's a story too about family history.

Not a lot happens, while at the same time so very much happens. It's plodding, but thrilling. Unique, but familiar. Emotional in every way imaginable. Every character, every moment, is precisely placed. Nothing is superfluous. The writing is tremendous.

I keep thinking of this story, as a 'days in the life of'' sort of story. And I think that's the best way to look at it. You're getting a lot of history, with snapshots of the present. It's thrilling, but overall there isn't an overall story arc. It's an experience more than anything.

The narrators were incredible. All perfectly cast. Their performances were spot on and added so very much to the story.

Takes a LONG time to get interesting

I don’t understand some of the hype for this book. It doesn’t get interesting until the final 3 hours of the audiobook.

The voice of Lurie was my favorite. I found the female voice for Nora to be annoyingly abrasive which made it hard to like her.