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The Amateur Marriage
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Blair Brown
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
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Publisher's summary
Pauline, impulsive, impractical, tumbles hit-or-miss through life; Michael, plodding, cautious, judgmental, proceeds deliberately. While other young marrieds, equally ignorant at the start, seemed to grow more seasoned, Pauline and Michael remain amateurs. In time their foolish quarrels take their toll. Even when they find themselves, almost thirty years later, loving, instant parents to a little grandson named Pagan, whom they rescue from Haight-Ashbury, they still cannot bridge their deep-rooted differences. Flighty Pauline clings to the notion that the rifts can always be patched. To the unyielding Michael, they become unbearable.
From the sound of the cash register in the old grocery to the counterculture jargon of the sixties, from the miniskirts to the multilayered apparel of later years, Anne Tyler captures the evocative nuances of everyday life during these decades with such telling precision that every page brings smiles of recognition. Throughout, as each of the competing voices bears witness, we are drawn ever more fully into the complex entanglements of family life in this wise, embracing, and deeply perceptive novel.
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"[Anne] Tyler's strength resides in her penetrating psychological portraits and delight in mundane details, and these gifts are evident....Her observations about how abruptly even the most boring life can go wrong, and about the fact that we are all amateurs in our first marriages, are poignant." (Booklist)
"Yes, Tyler intuitively understands the middle class' Norman Rockwell ideal, but she doesn't share it; rather, she has a masterful ability to make it bleed." (Publishers Weekly)
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What listeners say about The Amateur Marriage
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Pamela Harvey
- 01-25-04
Awesome Anne Tyler
Okay so I'm a little biased. Grew up in Baltimore, got married in Baltimore, had an amateur marriage exactly like the one in the book but geez this woman gets it right every time. Once again she leaves me with the feeling that no family is perfect, that everything is okay, it always was and always will be. Just not in the way I might think.
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19 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Lisa
- 01-25-04
Disappointing
Being an Anne Tyler fan I found this book to be less than expected. The characters are hard to warm up to and there seems to be no thread of happiness in this book. Used to the dry nature of Tylers novels I still found this one unsettling in a depressing sort of way.
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15 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Mariah
- 01-31-04
Vintage Anne Tyler But Different
The Amateur Marriage is a nearly vintage Anne Tyler novel:, offering a slightly off-kilter family, a fine sense of time and place and an excellent eye for detail expressed in well-turned phrases. But this book is written on a larger canvas than her others, spanning over 40 years in the lives of Pauline and Michael Anton. The story begins in 1941 at the start of World War II when Pauline falls in love with Michael for no other reason than she needed a man to send off to war. But Michael?s war career is short-lived and he soon comes limping back to Baltimore and into Pauline?s waiting arms. They quickly marry and live with Michael?s mother over the family grocery story. It is immediately clear that the couple is not a perfect fit. Pauline is impulsive, determined and ambitious while Michael is slow, plodding and perfectly happy in his small inner-city grocery store. Pauline?s will prevails, however, and the couple?along with Mother Anton and their new daughter, Lindy?move to one of the spanking new suburbs that blossomed around the country in the early 50s. Michael opens a new grocery story and the family adds to two more children. Except for the constant bickering between Pauline and Michael, all is well until Lindy abruptly vanishes, the only trace of her the three-year old son she abandons in San Francisco. Still devastated over the loss of their daughter, the Antons bravely press on and begin another round of carpools to raise their missing daughter?s son. Unlike most Tyler novels, this one contains no epiphanies, no sudden moments of understanding. Instead, there is a rather helpless sense of time rushing on while the characters spin out their lives caught up in trivialities. And while Tyler might be criticized for giving her characters little or no motivations for their life?s choices, she can be praised for creating a family we like and care about. And that is what makes this novel worth reading.
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14 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Susan Winter
- 03-28-05
romance? please re-catogorize!
reading this was an unpleasant experience - making you care for the characters in the wonderful opening chapters just enough so that you could feel enormous disappointment when you were left in limbo as to their fate when decades would vanish from their lives. It was really painful. more than a waste of time - this read was downright aggravating! and Audible should not call it romance, more like Greek tragedy.
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10 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Sonny
- 08-13-04
TOTAL WASTE OF TIME!!!!!
Sometimes I am just dumbfounded as to who claims to be a writer. The writer goes into great detail describing what she bought at the grocery store or what is included in a meatloaf...but says in passing that the main character died in an accident towards the end of the book...without any elaboration or warning. She constantly skips 10-15 years without mentioning how much time has passed. It's 10 minutes into the dialogue before you discover that the 9 year old she just talked about, is now 18 and in college. "Ten years later" would have been a helpful 3 words she could have used about 10 times in the book. The things she chose to talk about were so boring I would rather watch paint dry. BOO! BOO!
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4 people found this helpful
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- Marly
- 08-26-20
Beautiful story
This is a treasure of a book. The characters are real and developed with care. The story is real and unvarnished. Unlike a lot of Anne Tyler’s characters, these are not dysfunctional and silly. They are ordinary people making their way along through life as best as they know how. Things seldom work out like a fairy tale.
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3 people found this helpful
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- NMwritergal
- 12-20-15
One of my favorite Anne Tyler books
Seems like this one is a "really like it" or "really don't like it" with listeners/readers. For me, it was one of my favorites.
Great plot, great characters, great Audible narrator. Tyler juggles characters and time very well. Even though years and years pass, you don't feel shortchanged. The story and characters still feel fully realized.
I think Spool of Blue Thread is my all-time favorite Tyler novel, however.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Jana
- 06-28-04
Boring, depressing, waste of time
I've enjoyed reading previous Ann Tyler novels, but this one was like listening to my mother tell me boring stories about old distant relatives I didn't know or care about. It was well read but the story was predictable (wartime couple marry, raise kids, separate, divorce, man remarries, etc.) with each decade and its effects on the family members displayed generically (40s war effects on families; 50s black turtle necks and beatniks; 60s drugs, hippies; etc.) I finally stopped listening a couple hours from the end when I realized I could care less about any of the characters and was feeling punished by having to keep listening to avoid wasting my money.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Christina
- 06-10-04
Engaging and thought provoking
I thoroughly enjoyed this, as I do all of Tyler's books. She has a way of capturing exactly what you are feeling, and of embracing life with all its imperfections. I am surprised that others found the story uninteresting. I was completely caught up in it, to the point that I turned it on in my car even if I was going a short distance. It is true that one of the main characters is almost unbearably depressing toward the end, but I like books that do not shy away from difficult subjects, and I thought the ending nicely redeemed this thread. Not for those who want a happy story, but great for those who want writing that beautifully articulates the human condition.
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Overall
- John
- 02-06-06
a bad marriage and a bad book
How can one very gifted author write so badly in one book (Amateur Marriage) and so beautifully in others (most of her other books are magnificent)? What was she thinking when she wrote this dull interminable piece of fiction? It is a book of endless character development whose only plot is: a bad marriage gets worse.
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- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not of her memory. It was a Sunday night in 1944 when her husband left the little row house on Baltimore's Calvert Street, abandoning Pearl to raise their three children alone: Jenny, high-spirited and determined, nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loves; the older son, Cody, a wild and incorrigible youth possessed by the lure of power and money; and sweet, clumsy Ezra, Pearl's favorite, who never stops yearning for the perfect family that could never be his own. Now Pearl and her three grown children have gathered....
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Classic Anne Tyler
- By Eve Harris on 09-14-21
By: Anne Tyler
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The Beginner's Goodbye
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, torn apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances: in their house, on the roadway, in the market. Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family's vanity-publishing business, turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trials of life, that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye.
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Anne Tyler at her Best
- By Elizabeth Ward on 05-06-12
By: Anne Tyler
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Clock Dance
- A Novel
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Willa Drake can count on one hand the defining moments of her life. In 1967, she is a schoolgirl coping with her mother's sudden disappearance. In 1977, she is a college coed considering a marriage proposal. In 1997, she is a young widow trying to piece her life back together. And in 2017, she yearns to be a grandmother but isn't sure she ever will be. Then, one day, Willa receives a startling phone call from a stranger. Without fully understanding why, she flies across the country to Baltimore....
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disappointed
- By Amazon Customer on 07-13-18
By: Anne Tyler
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Redhead by the Side of the Road
- A Novel
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Micah Mortimer is a creature of habit. A self-employed tech expert, superintendent of his Baltimore apartment building, cautious to a fault behind the steering wheel, he seems content leading a steady, circumscribed life. But one day, his routines are blown apart when his woman friend (he refuses to call anyone in her late 30s a "girlfriend") tells him she's facing eviction, and a teenager shows up at Micah's door claiming to be his son. These surprises, and the ways they throw Micah's meticulously organized life off-kilter, risk changing him forever.
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Disappointed Diehard Tyler Fan
- By Suze on 04-13-20
By: Anne Tyler
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A Spool of Blue Thread
- A Novel
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon..." This is how Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate togetherness: an indefinable, enviable kind of specialness. But they are also like all families, in that the stories they tell themselves reveal only part of the picture.
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The Sharp Edge Of Family
- By Sara on 03-10-15
By: Anne Tyler
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Back When We Were Grownups
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Blair Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Back When We Were Grownups is about one woman's search for who she really is. Listen as a 53-year-old grandmother tries to recover her girlhood self and that dignified grownup she had once been.
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Wonderful characters
- By Barbara on 08-19-03
By: Anne Tyler
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Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Rodgers
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not of her memory. It was a Sunday night in 1944 when her husband left the little row house on Baltimore's Calvert Street, abandoning Pearl to raise their three children alone: Jenny, high-spirited and determined, nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loves; the older son, Cody, a wild and incorrigible youth possessed by the lure of power and money; and sweet, clumsy Ezra, Pearl's favorite, who never stops yearning for the perfect family that could never be his own. Now Pearl and her three grown children have gathered....
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Classic Anne Tyler
- By Eve Harris on 09-14-21
By: Anne Tyler
-
The Beginner's Goodbye
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, torn apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances: in their house, on the roadway, in the market. Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family's vanity-publishing business, turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trials of life, that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye.
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Anne Tyler at her Best
- By Elizabeth Ward on 05-06-12
By: Anne Tyler
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Breathing Lessons
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Maggie and Ira Moran are on a road trip from Baltimore, Maryland, to Deer Lick, Pennsylvania, to attend the funeral of a friend. Along the way, they reflect on the state of their marriage, its trials, and its triumphs - through their quarrels, their routines, and their ability to tolerate each other's faults with patience and affection.
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This novel has earned all the recognition ---
- By DLTBGYD on 11-20-22
By: Anne Tyler
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Ladder of Years
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
"Baltimore Woman Disappears During Family Vacation." The headlines are all the same: Beloved mother and wife Delia Grinstead was last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing only a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with $500 tucked inside. To the best of her family's knowledge, she has disappeared without a trace. But Delia didn't disappear. She ran.
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Terrific book, outstanding narration.
- By windymoon on 08-28-21
By: Anne Tyler
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French Braid
- A Novel
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common.
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Definitely not my favorite
- By 80 Oaks on 03-31-22
By: Anne Tyler
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Digging to America
- A Novel
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Blair Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Two families, who would otherwise never have come together, meet by chance at the Baltimore airport: the Donaldsons, a very American couple, and the Yazdans, Maryam's fully assimilated son and his attractive Iranian wife. Each couple is awaiting the arrival of an adopted infant daughter from Korea. After the instant babies from distant Asia are delivered, Bitsy Donaldson impulsively invites the Yazdans to celebrate.
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Life in transition
- By Everett Leiter on 08-20-06
By: Anne Tyler
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Morgan's Passing
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Nathan Osgood
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Morgan Gower is bored of the tedium of his ordinary life: of his job as manager of a run-down hardware store; of his wife; of his "industriously dull" daughters; of his mother; of his sister. But Morgan's secret escape lies in a box filled with costumes, filled with everything from a fake beard to Napoleon's tricorne to Daniel Boone, all of which provide an outlet away from his life and into the identity of someone who is assuredly not Morgan Gower.
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Outstanding
- By Robin K. on 06-11-23
By: Anne Tyler
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A Patchwork Planet
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Barnaby Gaitlin was never a bad kid, but he was certainly doing his best to impersonate one. As a teenager, he developed a habit of breaking into other people’s houses. But he wasn’t interested in the valuable loot - he just liked to read people’s mail, peruse their family albums, and maybe pocket a few personal mementos. Now almost 30 and divorced, he finds himself working for Rent-aBack, which helps the elderly and infirm move furniture or take down their Christmas trees. It’s the perfect career for Barnaby.
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amazing
- By Susan on 06-06-21
By: Anne Tyler
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Saint Maybe
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Ian Bedloe is the ideal teenage son, leading a cheery, apple-pie life with his family in Baltimore. That is, until a careless and vicious rumor leads to a devastating tragedy. Imploding from guilt, Ian believes he is the one responsible for the tragedy. No longer a star athlete with a bright future, and desperately searching for salvation, he stumbles across a storefront with a neon sign that simply reads: Church of the Second Chance. Ian has always viewed his penance as a burden. But through the power of faith and the love of family, he begins to view it as a gift.
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Brilliant
- By MNtea on 02-26-22
By: Anne Tyler
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The Tin Can Tree
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Tara Ward
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the small town of Larksville, the Pike family is hopelessly out of step with the daily rhythms of life. Mrs. Pike seldom speaks, while Mr. Pike maintains a forced stoicism. Only their 10-year-old, Simon, seems able to acknowledge that their world has changed. He just doesn't understand why. The Pikes may choose to stand still, to hide from an unnamable past, but the strange shroud over their home cannot be contained.
By: Anne Tyler
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If Morning Ever Comes
- By: Anne Tyler
- Narrated by: Debora Weston
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story