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The Disappeared
- Stories
- Narrated by: Lee Osorio
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
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The Disappeared
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Publisher's Summary
A collection of stories that trace the threads of loss and displacement running through all our lives, by the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Theory of Light and Matter
“What a beautiful book about the profound mystery of ordinary life.” —Alix Ohlin, author of We Want What We Want
A husband and wife hear a mysterious bump in the night. A father mourns the closeness he has lost with his son. A friendship with a married couple turns into a dangerous codependency. With gorgeous sensitivity, assurance, and a propulsive sense of menace, these stories center on disappearances both literal and figurative—lives and loves that are cut short, the vanishing of one's youthful self. From San Antonio to Austin, from the clamor of a crowded restaurant to the cigarette at a lonely kitchen table, Andrew Porter captures each of these relationships mid-flight, every individual life punctuated by loss and beauty and need. The Disappeared reaffirms the undeniable artistry of a contemporary master of the form.
What the critics say
“A great paradox sits at the heart of Andrew Porter’s excellent new story collection: How can we seem so firmly and comfortably settled in our lives, and yet be so utterly, desperately lost? Porter has a rare feel for the emotions that reveal our truest selves, and for the weight of the doubts, regrets and memories that pile up as the years go by. Love, loss, defeats large and small, these are all rendered to haunting effect in The Disappeared, and it’s a testament to Porter’s brilliant writing that these gorgeous, gutting stories haunt me still.” —Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
“The stories in The Disappeared are works of genius for precisely this reason. As you read, you’re bound to find yourself, like me . . . marveling at Porter’s perfect sentences, and the world he creates for us, one in which we can’t help but be present.” —Kristopher Jansma (in Electric Literature), author of Why We Came to the City
“Porter shows his literary prowess in The Disappeared.” —Dallas Morning News
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What listeners say about The Disappeared
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Erin Tigchelaar
- 2024-03-22
A frustrating Audible listen
An annoying book that misses a lot of its potential -- the writing is well-crafted and the situations in the stories intriguing, but the endings all go nowhere. There are fifteen stories, about half of them at flash fiction length, and all supposedly with different protagonists... but it's the same guy. And he was not my favourite guy. I like short fiction and this book was longlisted for The Story Prize, an award I usually enjoy the nominees for, but this one was a miss for me.
The format / performance of the reader also did the stories no favours. His usual narrating voice is rich and pleasant, but the female voices were mostly delivered in a strange, high-pitched, breathy manner with uptalk, which resembled the voice of no woman I've ever heard, anywhere. The narrator apparently speaks conversational French, as well, but his accent for characters with a French background speaking English (of which there are several in the collection) was also off-putting.
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