The Position

A Novel

By: Meg Wolitzer

Narrated by: Xe Sands

Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Crackling with intelligence and humor, The Position is the masterful story of one extraordinary family at the hilarious height of the sexual revolution - and through the 30-year hangover that followed.

In 1975 Paul and Roz Mellow wrote a best-selling Joy of Sex-type book that mortified their four school-aged children and ultimately changed the shape of the family forever. Thirty years later, as the now dispersed family members argue over whether to reissue the book, we follow the complicated lives of each of the grown children and their conflicts in love, work, marriage, parenting, and, of course, sex - all shadowed by the indelible specter of their highly sexualized parents.

Insightful, panoramic, and compulsively listenable, The Position is an American original.

©2015 Blackstone Audio (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Meh

I found the narration really irritating. Her regular reading voice was pleasant but her "characterizations" were terrible. The men all sounded like they had just been woken up from a deep sleep and the women were whiny and high pitched. Ruined the book for me.

Audible detracted from novel

I found plenty to enjoy with good characterization and insights in the writing of this novel. But the reader is on my list to not buy in the future! Her voice is nice but when she reads a male voice they all sound like a drunken 1970’s caricature. I buy the audible book for every novel I read and that’s a lot. One of my favorite indulgences. I listen while driving and falling asleep. But this audible offering was offensive.

If you are this jaded is there a reason to share?

Any additional comments?

I have a good friend who is a book agent, who says that for a book to be published today there must be some huge unique that makes it stand out from its fellows. This book's unique is that the fictional parents of this fictional family have written a book called 'Pleasuring' a thinly veiled reference to the 1960s tome 'The Joy of Sex.' Is it reading the book that causes the 4 Mellow children to spend the next 30 years languishing in a perpetual state of ennui? Or is it the legacy of growing up during the 1960s only to mature into the post 2010 world where everyone's hopes have been dashed and we've all become permanently jaded.The real question for me, is that enough of a reason for me to lose 10 hours of my precious life listening to a story about a family's inexorable slog towards the grave. (Not even a march towards the grave is possible) Is there a point to loving your partner or is it just as good to swing into town to boink an occasional lover? Is there a point to having children? Does it matter if you are republican or gay... or for that matter a gay republican? Is there a point to working in a non-profit when you could be indulging yourself ruminating about your inability to complete the sex act while visiting your father in Florida?.. This book is a Russian doll of the mundane disappointment which begat the disappointment of the next generation. Thank goodness it stops there as the only nod to the third generation is the mention of a 19 month old toddler still swinging at the teat of his distracted and perennially angry mother Holly. The eldest of the Mellow children.This is part of what the author postulates is the reality of modern American life. When in the last part of the book the most fulfilled character announces their imminent death, I felt like saying "Can I come too?"I try to learn something from every book I read. I guess what I've learned from this little exercise is that I do not want to read anything more by this author.