-
What I Lived For
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 28 hrs
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

pick 2 free titles with trial.
Buy for $47.90
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Bellefleur
- Gothic Saga Series, Book 1
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 27 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A wealthy and notorious clan, the Bellefleurs live in a region not unlike the Adirondacks, in an enormous mansion on the shores of mythic Lake Noir. They own vast lands and profitable businesses, they employ their neighbors, and they influence the government. A prolific and eccentric group, they include several millionaires, a mass murderer, a spiritual seeker who climbs into the mountains looking for God, a wealthy noctambulist who dies of a chicken scratch.
-
-
Old School Gothic Literature (Not a beach read)
- By Keijon ford on 05-01-20
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
My Life as a Rat
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Sadie Alexandru
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age 12, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African American boy by her older brothers. In a succession of vividly recalled episodes, Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently “informs” on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement.
-
-
Heavy Topics & Satisfying Story
- By Oscar on 06-30-19
-
The World According to Garp
- A Novel
- By: John Irving
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, John Irving
- Length: 20 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The opening sentence of John Irving's breakout novel, The World According to Garp, signals the start of sexual violence, which becomes increasingly political. "Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater." Jenny is an unmarried nurse; she becomes a single mom and a feminist leader, beloved but polarizing. Her son, Garp, is less beloved, but no less polarizing.
-
-
Didn't get past intro
- By Gordon on 01-19-19
By: John Irving
-
Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Cheryl Smith
- Length: 30 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. is a gripping examination of contemporary America through the prism of a family tragedy: When a powerful parent dies, each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways, and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all. Stark and penetrating, Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel is a vivid exploration of race, psychological trauma, class warfare, grief, and eventual healing, as well as an intimate family novel in the tradition of the author’s best-selling We Were the Mulvaneys.
-
-
A New All Time Favorite
- By Meg on 06-22-20
-
The Poisonwood Bible
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Dean Robertson
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it - from garden seeds to Scripture - is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
-
-
Listen to the sample first!
- By Cheryl D on 07-30-08
-
Bellefleur
- Gothic Saga Series, Book 1
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 27 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A wealthy and notorious clan, the Bellefleurs live in a region not unlike the Adirondacks, in an enormous mansion on the shores of mythic Lake Noir. They own vast lands and profitable businesses, they employ their neighbors, and they influence the government. A prolific and eccentric group, they include several millionaires, a mass murderer, a spiritual seeker who climbs into the mountains looking for God, a wealthy noctambulist who dies of a chicken scratch.
-
-
Old School Gothic Literature (Not a beach read)
- By Keijon ford on 05-01-20
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
My Life as a Rat
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Sadie Alexandru
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age 12, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African American boy by her older brothers. In a succession of vividly recalled episodes, Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently “informs” on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement.
-
-
Heavy Topics & Satisfying Story
- By Oscar on 06-30-19
-
The World According to Garp
- A Novel
- By: John Irving
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, John Irving
- Length: 20 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The opening sentence of John Irving's breakout novel, The World According to Garp, signals the start of sexual violence, which becomes increasingly political. "Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater." Jenny is an unmarried nurse; she becomes a single mom and a feminist leader, beloved but polarizing. Her son, Garp, is less beloved, but no less polarizing.
-
-
Didn't get past intro
- By Gordon on 01-19-19
By: John Irving
-
Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Cheryl Smith
- Length: 30 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. is a gripping examination of contemporary America through the prism of a family tragedy: When a powerful parent dies, each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways, and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all. Stark and penetrating, Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel is a vivid exploration of race, psychological trauma, class warfare, grief, and eventual healing, as well as an intimate family novel in the tradition of the author’s best-selling We Were the Mulvaneys.
-
-
A New All Time Favorite
- By Meg on 06-22-20
-
The Poisonwood Bible
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Dean Robertson
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it - from garden seeds to Scripture - is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
-
-
Listen to the sample first!
- By Cheryl D on 07-30-08
-
Small Mercies
- A Novel
- By: Dennis Lehane
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessey is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to tradition and stands proudly apart. One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched.
-
-
Sadly these streets are my home…
- By shipyardjay on 05-10-23
By: Dennis Lehane
-
The Goldfinch
- By: Donna Tartt
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 32 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity. It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
-
-
Boy, am I in the minority on this one.
- By Bonny on 11-04-13
By: Donna Tartt
-
The Good Earth
- By: Pearl S. Buck
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This Pulitzer Prize-winning classic tells the poignant tale of a Chinese farmer and his family in old agrarian China. The humble Wang Lung glories in the soil he works, nurturing the land as it nurtures him and his family. Nearby, the nobles of the House of Hwang consider themselves above the land and its workers; but they will soon meet their own downfall. The working people riot, breaking into the homes of the rich and forcing them to flee. When Wang Lung shows mercy to one noble and is rewarded, he begins to rise in the world, even as the House of Hwang falls.
-
-
Wow
- By Ryan on 05-08-10
By: Pearl S. Buck
-
Life of Pi
- By: Yann Martel
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories and practices not only his native Hinduism but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is 16, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450 pound Bengal tiger.
-
-
Wonderful story and superb voice acting.
- By James Barmore on 12-11-18
By: Yann Martel
-
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
- A Novel
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones
- Narrated by: Beata Pozniak
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then, a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon, other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind....
-
-
Narrator - Authentic as it can get!
- By Chris on 09-03-19
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
-
Gravity's Rainbow
- By: Thomas Pynchon, Frank Miller - cover design
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 37 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the 20th century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.
-
-
"Time to touch the person next to you"
- By Jefferson on 07-04-16
By: Thomas Pynchon, and others
-
Lessons
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Simon McBurney
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. 2,000 miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
-
-
Narrator Simon McBurney gets my 100% rating
- By Peggy M on 09-26-22
By: Ian McEwan
-
When We Were Orphans
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Christopher Banks, an English boy born in early-20th-century Shanghai, is orphaned at age nine when both his mother and father disappear under suspicious circumstances. He grows up to become a renowned detective, and more than 20 years later, returns to Shanghai to solve the mystery of the disappearances.
-
-
Just short of 5 stars
- By Everett Leiter on 05-26-06
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
-
The Years
- By: Annie Ernaux
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Years is a personal narrative of the period of 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present - even projections into the future - photos, books, songs, radio, television, and decades of advertising and headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and written notes from six decades of diaries. Local dialect, words of the time, slogans, brands, and names for ever-proliferating objects are given a voice here. The voice we recognize as the author's continually dissolves and re-emerges.
-
-
Mixed Feelings
- By Elin VanD on 05-10-20
By: Annie Ernaux
-
Deacon King Kong
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and, in front of everybody, shoots the project's drug dealer at point-blank range. The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of Deacon King Kong, James McBride's funny, moving novel and his first since his National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird.
-
-
Masterpiece
- By Linda G McDonough on 05-17-20
By: James McBride
-
The Hunter
- Boston Belles, Book 1
- By: L.J. Shen
- Narrated by: Virginia Rose, Jason Clarke
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I didn't mean to star in a sex tape, okay? It was just one of those unexplainable things. Like Stonehenge, Police Academy 2, and morning glory clouds. It just happened. Now, my ball-busting father is sentencing me to six months of celibacy, sobriety, and morbid boredom under the roof of Boston's nerdiest girl alive, Sailor Brennan. The virginal archer is supposed to babysit my ass while I learn to take my place in Royal Pipelines, my family's oil company. Little does she know, that's not the only pipe I'll be laying....
-
-
Female narrator is AWFUL
- By Tracey on 05-21-20
By: L.J. Shen
-
Framed
- By: S. L. McInnis
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin, Ron Butler, Karissa Vacker, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beth Montgomery seems to have the perfect life: a beautiful house in the hills above Los Angeles, a handsome, ambitious husband, and plans of starting a family. So it doesn't occur to her to worry when the news breaks of a quadruple homicide across town, a botched drug deal that leaves an undercover officer among the dead. Beth certainly would never think to tie the murders to the sudden reappearance in her life of wild, sexy Cassie Ogilvy, the estranged best friend she hasn't seen since they were college roommates.
-
-
Contrived
- By Sheila S on 04-01-20
By: S. L. McInnis
Publisher's Summary
The stunning, classic portrait of a powerful man's downward spiral to moral ruin
Jerome "Corky" Corcorn. A money-juggling wheeler dealer, rising politico, popular man's man, and successful womanizer. It is a Memorial Day weekend, and we are about to live with him, breathe with him, and sweat with him in a nonstop marathon of mounting desperation as he tries to keep his financial empire from unraveling, his love life from shredding, and his rebellious daughter from destroying both herself and him. Seldom in fiction has a man been brought so vividly to life in all his strength and weakness, hunger and ambition, carnality and corruption. Rarely has the complex web of American society been revealed so rivetingly. And never has one of today's supreme writers, Joyce Carol Oates, written a bolder and better novel than this mesmerizing masterpiece.
More from the same
What listeners say about What I Lived For
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Notsokeen
- 04-13-20
A challenge to get through..
I hated this book. The beginning and end held my attention. Everything in between was a struggle. Many times I wanted to stop listening to the book but for some reason, I hoped there would be a reward for powering through. I had hoped to see some redeeming qualities to Corky. I could not stand him. He is a survivor, not intelligent, making decisions based on his wit. He was an alcoholic and disgustingly vulgar character. However, the unexpected ending did provide some of the reward I was looking for in “sticking with it”. I would never recommend this book to anyone and unfortunately, will be the last book I read by Joyce Carol Oates. I read “We are the Mulvaneys” and enjoyed it. So much so that I decided to try another book of Ms.Oates. Poor choice on my part.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 08-03-20
Brilliant Portrait of a man in full
As usual Joyce Carol Oates fascinates by creating deep understanding for a man whom I would call a jerk if I would not have gotten to know him deeply and personally thru her exquisite writing
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cecilia
- 03-22-21
Stream-of-consciousness peak into someone's head
A reflective almost real-time account of a few days' thought processes and culmination of events in the life of narrator. Flawless narration!
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Lovely, Dark, Deep
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Jason Culp, Maggi-Meg Reed
- Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the legendary literary master, winner of the National Book Award and New York Times best-selling author Joyce Carol Oates, a collection of ten spellbinding stories that maps the eerie darkness within us all. Insightful, disturbing, and mesmerizing in their lyrical precision, the stories in Lovely, Dark, Deep display Joyce Carol Oates's astonishing ability to make visceral the fear, hurt, and uncertainty that lurks at the edges of ordinary lives.
-
-
celebrating human imperfection as the life's drama
- By Kyler Nicholas on 10-05-19
-
Evil Eye
- Four Novellas of Love Gone Wrong
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Donna Postel, Luci Christian, Chris Patton, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Listeners know that few authors are able to create an atmosphere of unease and terror as well as Oates, a fact confirmed by the four novellas presented here. All the novellas in this collection revolve around the theme of love gone wrong - horribly, shockingly wrong.
-
-
Some of the stories are excellent!
- By Matthew S. Hill on 03-29-17
-
We Were the Mulvaneys
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Scott Shina
- Length: 22 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Judd is the youngest of the four Mulvaney children - three boys and a girl - on their parents’ lush farm in upstate New York. In his childhood, Judd is swept along by the sheer energy of the Mulvaneys and their wealth of beloved family stories. But now, 30 years old, Judd looks back through his memories to tell the secrets that eventually ripped apart the fabric of his storybook family.
-
-
Overlooked Masterpiece
- By Jason on 10-26-12
-
Pursuit
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a child, Abby had the same recurring nightmare night after night, in which she wandered through a field ridden with human skulls and bones. Now an adult, Abby thinks she's outgrown her demons, until, the evening before her wedding, the terrible dream returns and forces her to confront the dark secrets from her past she has kept from her new husband, Willem. The following day - less than 24 hours after exchanging vows - Abby steps out into traffic.
-
-
not what I thought
- By Amber on 10-23-20
-
A Book of American Martyrs
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Neil Hellegers, Tavia Gilbert, Kirsten Potter
- Length: 24 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this striking, enormously affecting novel, Joyce Carol Oates tells the story of two very different yet intimately linked American families. Luther Dunphy is an ardent Evangelical who envisions himself as acting out God's will when he assassinates an abortion provider in his small Ohio town while Augustus Voorhees, the idealistic doctor who is killed, leaves behind a wife and children scarred and embittered by grief.
-
-
NO! Just NO! INSULTING!
- By Jill Reynolds on 06-01-17
-
Blonde
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Jayne Atkinson
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
She was an all-American girl who became a legend of unparalleled stature. She inspired the adoration of millions, and her life has beguiled generations of fans and fellow artists. The story of Norma Jeane Baker, better known by her studio name, Marilyn Monroe, has been dissected for more than three decades, but never has it been captured in a narrative as breathtaking and transforming as Blonde.
-
-
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? NO UNABRIDGED VERSION?
- By C. Boatenreiter on 02-07-13
-
Lovely, Dark, Deep
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Jason Culp, Maggi-Meg Reed
- Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the legendary literary master, winner of the National Book Award and New York Times best-selling author Joyce Carol Oates, a collection of ten spellbinding stories that maps the eerie darkness within us all. Insightful, disturbing, and mesmerizing in their lyrical precision, the stories in Lovely, Dark, Deep display Joyce Carol Oates's astonishing ability to make visceral the fear, hurt, and uncertainty that lurks at the edges of ordinary lives.
-
-
celebrating human imperfection as the life's drama
- By Kyler Nicholas on 10-05-19
-
Evil Eye
- Four Novellas of Love Gone Wrong
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Donna Postel, Luci Christian, Chris Patton, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Listeners know that few authors are able to create an atmosphere of unease and terror as well as Oates, a fact confirmed by the four novellas presented here. All the novellas in this collection revolve around the theme of love gone wrong - horribly, shockingly wrong.
-
-
Some of the stories are excellent!
- By Matthew S. Hill on 03-29-17
-
We Were the Mulvaneys
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Scott Shina
- Length: 22 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Judd is the youngest of the four Mulvaney children - three boys and a girl - on their parents’ lush farm in upstate New York. In his childhood, Judd is swept along by the sheer energy of the Mulvaneys and their wealth of beloved family stories. But now, 30 years old, Judd looks back through his memories to tell the secrets that eventually ripped apart the fabric of his storybook family.
-
-
Overlooked Masterpiece
- By Jason on 10-26-12
-
Pursuit
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a child, Abby had the same recurring nightmare night after night, in which she wandered through a field ridden with human skulls and bones. Now an adult, Abby thinks she's outgrown her demons, until, the evening before her wedding, the terrible dream returns and forces her to confront the dark secrets from her past she has kept from her new husband, Willem. The following day - less than 24 hours after exchanging vows - Abby steps out into traffic.
-
-
not what I thought
- By Amber on 10-23-20
-
A Book of American Martyrs
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Neil Hellegers, Tavia Gilbert, Kirsten Potter
- Length: 24 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this striking, enormously affecting novel, Joyce Carol Oates tells the story of two very different yet intimately linked American families. Luther Dunphy is an ardent Evangelical who envisions himself as acting out God's will when he assassinates an abortion provider in his small Ohio town while Augustus Voorhees, the idealistic doctor who is killed, leaves behind a wife and children scarred and embittered by grief.
-
-
NO! Just NO! INSULTING!
- By Jill Reynolds on 06-01-17
-
Blonde
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Jayne Atkinson
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
She was an all-American girl who became a legend of unparalleled stature. She inspired the adoration of millions, and her life has beguiled generations of fans and fellow artists. The story of Norma Jeane Baker, better known by her studio name, Marilyn Monroe, has been dissected for more than three decades, but never has it been captured in a narrative as breathtaking and transforming as Blonde.
-
-
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? NO UNABRIDGED VERSION?
- By C. Boatenreiter on 02-07-13
-
The (Other) You
- Stories
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Kate Reading, Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this stirring, reflective collection of short stories, Joyce Carol Oates ponders alternate destinies: the other lives we might have led if we’d made different choices. An accomplished writer returns to her childhood home of Yewville, but the homecoming stirs troubled thoughts about the person she might have been if she’d never left. A man in prison contemplates the gravity of his irreversible act. A student’s affair with a professor results in a pregnancy that alters the course of her life forever. Even the experience of reading is investigated.
-
-
Amazing
- By Betsy Ross on 01-28-23
-
48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Sarah Welborn
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marguerite, a beautiful woman, has disappeared from her small town in Upstate New York. But is foul play involved? Or did she merely take an opportunity to get away for fun, or finally make the decision to leave behind her claustrophobic life of limited opportunities? Her younger sister Gigi wonders if the flimsy silk Dior dress, so casually abandoned on the floor, is a clue to Marguerite's having seemingly vanished. The police examine the footprints made by her Ferragamo boots leaving the house, ending abruptly, and puzzle over how that can help lead to her.
-
-
Clever and horrifying
- By Joan Sutton on 03-19-23
-
Bellefleur
- Gothic Saga Series, Book 1
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 27 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A wealthy and notorious clan, the Bellefleurs live in a region not unlike the Adirondacks, in an enormous mansion on the shores of mythic Lake Noir. They own vast lands and profitable businesses, they employ their neighbors, and they influence the government. A prolific and eccentric group, they include several millionaires, a mass murderer, a spiritual seeker who climbs into the mountains looking for God, a wealthy noctambulist who dies of a chicken scratch.
-
-
Old School Gothic Literature (Not a beach read)
- By Keijon ford on 05-01-20
-
With Shuddering Fall
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written when Joyce Carol Oates was in her early 20s, and first published in 1964, With Shuddering Fall is her powerful debut novel. Following the turbulent story of two lovers who discover themselves mortal enemies, the author explores the struggle for dominance in erotic relationships that has become a predominant theme in her work, as well as the perils of patriarchal inheritance, and the ripple-effects of emotional loss in adolescence.
-
A Widow's Story
- A Memoir
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Ellen Parker
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a work unlike anything she's written before, National Book Award-winner Joyce Carol Oates unveils a poignant, intimate memoir about the unexpected death of her husband of 46 years and its wrenching, surprising aftermath.
-
-
Breathless!
- By Pamela Harvey on 02-18-11
-
Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Cheryl Smith
- Length: 30 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. is a gripping examination of contemporary America through the prism of a family tragedy: When a powerful parent dies, each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways, and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all. Stark and penetrating, Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel is a vivid exploration of race, psychological trauma, class warfare, grief, and eventual healing, as well as an intimate family novel in the tradition of the author’s best-selling We Were the Mulvaneys.
-
-
A New All Time Favorite
- By Meg on 06-22-20
-
Solstice
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally published in 1985, Solstice is the gripping story of Monica Jensen and Sheila Trask, two young women who are complete opposites yet find themselves irresistibly drawn to each other. Monica is a shy, modest, and recently divorced school teacher while Sheila is a worldly, sophisticated, and nocturnal painter driven by the needs of her art. Over the months, their friendship deepens, first to love and then to a near-fatal obsession. Engaging, dark, and mysterious, Solstice is Joyce Carol Oates’s psychological masterpiece of friendship and fixation.
-
My Life as a Rat
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Sadie Alexandru
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age 12, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African American boy by her older brothers. In a succession of vividly recalled episodes, Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently “informs” on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement.
-
-
Heavy Topics & Satisfying Story
- By Oscar on 06-30-19
-
Babysitter
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Kirby Heyborne, Max Meyers
- Length: 17 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the waning days of the turbulent 1970s, in the wake of unsolved child-killings that have shocked Detroit, the lives of several residents are drawn together with tragic consequences. There is Hannah, wife of a prominent local businessman, who has begun an affair with a darkly charismatic stranger whose identity remains elusive; Mikey, a canny street hustler who finds himself on a chilling mission to rectify injustice; and the serial killer known as Babysitter, an enigmatic and terrifying figure at the periphery of elite Detroit.
-
-
Insidious Evil
- By Edward Martinez on 09-09-22
-
Extenuating Circumstances
- A Treasury of Crime & Suspense Fiction
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two hitmen in a depressed rust belt town struggle with a job gone wrong. A girl witnesses a horrifying accident and carries it with her for the rest of her life. Medical students bring a severed foot to a college party. Five-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Joyce Carol Oates has made a career of exploring the forbidden corners of human experience, and the stories collected here, spanning her first three decades as a writer, are among her most unsettling and unforgettable works to date.
-
-
Very Dark
- By Lady in the Pink House on 01-26-23
-
The Falls
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A man climbs over the railings and plunges into Niagara Falls. A newlywed, he has left behind his wife, Ariah Erskine, in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding. "The Widow Bride of The Falls", as Ariah comes to be known, begins a relentless, seven-day vigil in the mist, waiting for his body to be found.
-
-
Clean Out Your Ears
- By Harry I. Shuman on 07-26-05
-
Carthage
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen, David Colacci
- Length: 19 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Zeno Mayfield's daughter has disappeared into the night, gone missing in the wilds of the Adirondacks. But when the community of Carthage joins a father's frantic search for the girl, they discover the unlikeliest of suspects…a decorated Iraq War veteran with close ties to the Mayfield family. As grisly evidence mounts against the troubled war hero, the family must wrestle with the possibility of having lost a daughter forever. Carthage plunges us deep into the psyche of a wounded young corporal haunted by unspeakable acts of wartime aggression.
-
-
A Major Disappointment!!
- By Anne on 01-23-14