
The Widower's Tale
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Mark Bramhall
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By:
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Julia Glass
About this listen
In a historic farmhouse outside Boston, 70-year-old Percy Darling is settling happily into retirement: Reading novels, watching old movies, and swimming naked in his pond. His routines are disrupted, however, when he is persuaded to let a locally beloved preschool take over his barn. As Percy sees his rural refuge overrun by children, parents, and teachers, he must reexamine the solitary life he has made in the three decades since the sudden death of his wife. No longer can he remain aloof from his community, his two grown daughters, or, to his shock, the precarious joy of falling in love.
One relationship Percy treasures is the bond with his oldest grandchild, Robert, a premed student at Harvard. Robert has long assumed he will follow in the footsteps of his mother, a prominent physician, but he begins to question his ambitions when confronted by a charismatic roommate who preaches - and begins to practice - an extreme form of ecological activism, targeting Boston’s most affluent suburbs. Meanwhile, two other men become fatefully involved with Percy and Robert: Ira, a gay teacher at the preschool, and Celestino, a Guatemalan gardener who works for Percy’s neighbor, each one striving to overcome a sense of personal exile.
Choices made by all four men, as well as by the women around them, collide forcefully on one lovely spring evening, upending everyone’s lives, but none more radically than Percy’s. With equal parts affection and satire, Julia Glass spins a captivating tale about the loyalties, rivalries, and secrets of a very particular family. Yet again, she plumbs the human heart brilliantly, dramatically, and movingly.
©2010 Random House Audio; 2010 Julia GlassListeners also enjoyed...
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When the Moon Turns Blue
- A Novel
- By: Pamela Terry
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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On the morning after Harry Cline’s funeral, a rare ice storm hits the town of Wesleyan, Georgia. The community wakes up to find its controversial statue of Confederate general Henry Benning destroyed—and not by the weather. Half the town had wanted to remove the statue; the other half had wanted to preserve it. Now that the matter has been taken out of their hands, the town’s long-simmering tensions are laid bare. When the Moon Turns Blue is a timely novel about family, friendship, and what can happen when we discover that we don’t particularly like the people we love.
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Kinda boring
- By Danielle on 05-25-23
By: Pamela Terry
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White Oleander
- By: Janet Fitch
- Narrated by: Oprah Winfrey
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Abridged
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In this gripping first novel, a young girl, orphaned when her mother murders an ex-lover, endures the shuffle of a foster child's life. Oprah enjoyed her book club pick so much that she narrates the audiobook edition!
Browse more Oprah Picks.
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White Oleander
- By Tracy on 04-09-04
By: Janet Fitch
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Our Evenings
- A Novel
- By: Alan Hollinghurst
- Narrated by: Prasanna Puwanarajah
- Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Dave Win, the son of a Burmese man he’s never met and a British dressmaker, is thirteen years old when he gets a scholarship to a top boarding school. With the doors of elite English society cracked open for him, heady new possibilities emerge, even as Dave is exposed to the envy and viciousness of his wealthy classmates.
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Sublime Collaboration
- By Phip Herrick on 11-20-24
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Grown Women
- A Novel
- By: Sarai Johnson
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In this stunning debut novel, four generations of complex Black women contend with motherhood and daughterhood, generational trauma and the deeply ingrained tensions and wounds that divide them as they redefine happiness and healing for themselves. In masterful, elegant prose, debut novelist Sarai Johnson has created a rich and moving portrait of Black women’s lives today.
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Love the Story!
- By Tomgirll on 08-12-24
By: Sarai Johnson
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The Patron Saint of Liars
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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St. Elizabeth’s, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little while. Not so Rose Clinton, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregnant but not unwed, and stays. She plans to give up her child, thinking she cannot be the mother it needs. But when Cecilia is born, Rose makes a place for herself and her daughter amid St. Elizabeth’s extended family of nuns and an ever-changing collection of pregnant teenage girls.
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Incomplete
- By Deborah on 04-24-08
By: Ann Patchett
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The Bee Sting
- A Novel
- By: Paul Murray
- Narrated by: Heather O’Sullivan, Barry Fitzgerald, Beau Holland, and others
- Length: 26 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under—but Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he’s on the brink of running away.
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Bone Clocks meets Jonathan Franzen
- By Cranson on 10-26-23
By: Paul Murray
What listeners say about The Widower's Tale
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- MC
- 03-01-19
beautiful
beautifully written. enjoyed from start to finish! great narration, also. you could feel the different characters.
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- SwissAmerican
- 05-15-20
The Main Character Makes The Book
This book is told from the perspective of four different characters, all men. The main character, a crusty widower, is absolutely marvelous. It’s also where the narrator finds his strongest voice.
Interestingly enough, I felt that Ira, the gay man, what is the least interesting character in the book. This is a little odd, because Julia Glass previously created really compelling portraits of gay men.
I’ve enjoyed all of her novels so far, and this is no exception. Her storytelling, characters, and especially her evoking the landscape and culture of wealthy suburban Massachusetts are vivid and engaging. It’s the kind of intelligent look at other peoples lives that I enjoy.
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Overall
- Dennis
- 09-16-10
Taler Made
Julia Glass spins a tale of life in a small New England town that draws the listener into the life of Percy Darling, the eponymous widower, and his attempt to recover from his wife's death thirty years ago. Glass's insights into a senior citizen, his children, extended family, friends and acquaintances make each character real, i.e., flawed but sympathetic. There are neither heroes nor villains, yet, just as we hope we can, the characters muddle though life wiser for the experience.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Louise E. Terpstra
- 08-17-22
Loved this book!
Characters are well developed, the plot holds you to the end. Full of compassion and love.
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- Minneapolis listener
- 03-06-22
Writing is good enough…
The book is just 7 hours and 6-10 characters too LONG and too MUCH.
Besides that, the writer spends so much time on her political agenda that endearing things, meaningful things, like Celestino’s reaction to seeing his lover again are nearly lost. We KNOW she is rich compared to him!
In fact that agenda is hammered so hard that it, not Percy, nor Robert, is the main character in the book, if you can let go of your peevishness at Percy warbling “Daaaaugh-ter…” down the driveway.
Mr. Ira and his partner were a beautifully written couple as was the emotionally practical Sarah. As I said, the writing in most places was good.
However, re Trudy, I am exhausted with hero doctors/lawyers/politicians/police/PIs who are too busy to breathe from both nostrils because they are using one to sleep. That trope was old with Frank Furillo on Hill Street Blues.
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- Patricia
- 04-27-12
A Certain Kind of Maturity
I throughly enjoyed Julia Glasses "The Widower's Tale," but, then again, I am of a certain age.
Mark Bramhall was the perfect, slow, almost drawling voice of an older man, but far from boring. He made Percy Darling jump to life with his gently sardonic wit, and insightful self deprecations.
The book was a little slow going at times, and its punches were slow to build rather than a constant bombardment of action, but I think it was well worth the listen.
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Overall
- Susan C. S.
- 11-09-10
Baffling choice by the Narrator.
I can't understand why the narrator chose to portray the main character in the voice of an extremely elderly man with a stereotypical Boston Brahmin accent. The man is actually 71 years old and specifically mentions that he grew up in a bookish household in Montclair New Jersey. This choice skews the entire narrative and makes the central character almost comically flat. He's not a character, but a caricature, one invented not by the author, but by the Narrator. Too bad.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Diana Villalobos
- 07-14-16
Great!
great story and fantastic writing; very interesting characters and the narration was perfect loved it
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Overall
- Patricia B Tripoli
- 07-17-11
Too Many Ideas
I did love Julia Glass' "Three Junes" so I thought this would be a good choice. The story is entertaining enough, but there are too many threads. You don't get confused, but they don't connect. Each is very interesting, but as I said, they didn't connect enough. The immigrant part, especially.
Narrator Bramhall does a wonderful job of narrating, but I agree with another reviewer that the Brahmin accent of the central character did not fit well. He distinguishes the characters very well.
So this wasn't a bad choice, just not stellar.
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- Megan
- 06-07-21
Very enjoyable
I thought the story was good and the writing excellent—I loved the way Julia Glass uses words. I hope to read more from her. The narrator was great too!
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