The Story of Beautiful Girl

By: Rachel Simon

Narrated by: Kate Reading

On a stormy night in small-town America, a couple, desperate and soaked to the skin, knock on a stranger's door. When Martha, a retired schoolteacher living a safe and conventional life, answers their knock, her world changes forever. For they are fugitives. Lynnie, a young woman with an intellectual disability, and Homan, a deaf man with only sign language to guide him, have escaped together from The School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, a brutal institution where people with disabilities are left to languish, shuttered away from the world. In a moment of despair, they reveal that Lynnie has a new-born baby. But, moments later, the police bang on the door. Homan escapes into the darkness, Lynnie is captured. But just before she is returned to The School, bound and tied, she utters two words to Martha: "Hide her."

And so begins the unforgettable story of Lynnie, Homan, Martha, and baby Julia - lives divided by seemingly insurmountable obstacles, yet drawn together by a secret pact and extraordinary love.

©2011 Rachel Simon (P)2012 Random House AudioGo

Critic reviews

"It’s a wonderful book." ( Book of the Week Woman’s Own)

"Simon combines love story and social accountability to great effect." ( Guardian)

"[A] glorious listen.." ( Kati Nicholl, Daily Express)