The Listeners
by Leni Zumas
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Fiction. Literature. HTML:Hypnotic and profoundly disquieting, The Listeners explores a far-out world where a patchwork of memory, sensation, and imagination maps the flickering presence of ghosts.This is the story of a woman whose life is shaped by tragedy. Quinn is thirtysomething, a survivor of a fractured and eccentric childhood marred by the death of her younger sister. Twenty years later, she is in the midst of a decade-long slide down the other side of punk-rock stardom after her show more successful music career was abruptly halted. Sassy and smart, tough but broken, Quinn is at loose ends. She develops unique strategies for coping, but no matter what twisted tactic Quinn conjures to keep her psyche intact, she cannot keep the past away. The Listeners is about what lurks in the shadows and what happens when what's lurking insists on being seen.
Leni Zumas portrays a world twisted on its axis by loss, in all its grotesque beauty. From the first line the prose is glorious: pricklingly honest and hallucinatory, a lucid dream world realized. The Listeners marks the debut of a major American writer. show less
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Despite a gorgeous Indiespensable hardcover edition, the book is utterly forgettable. It's like a mix of [b:Green Girl|11373953|Green Girl|Kate Zambreno|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1314904157s/11373953.jpg|16305019] and [b:Stone Arabia|10647326|Stone Arabia|Dana Spiotta|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327927235s/10647326.jpg|15556235], without any of the truly redeeming features of either of those (also arguably frustrating) novels. The experience of reading this was akin to that of water rolling off a well-Rain-X'd windshield. It just slides right off you, without ever leaving anything other than a vague sensation of dampness in the recent past.
More about it, if you care to read it, at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-s3
More about it, if you care to read it, at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-s3
4.25 An auspicious first novel. Tone, character, and pacing are mesmerizing, though the book lacks an ending. Worth it for the would-you-rathers. I look forward to more from Zumas.
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Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Dedication
- For Diana and Greg and in memory of our uncle Tony
- First words
- The clerk had two thumbs on his left hand.
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- Members
- 137
- Popularity
- 237,582
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.47)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 1
