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Delayed Rays of a Star
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Orlagh Cassidy
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Amanda Lee Koe
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By:
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Amanda Lee Koe
About this listen
An NPR Best Book of the Year
A dazzling debut novel following the lives of three groundbreaking women - Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and Leni Riefenstahl - cinema legends who lit up the 20th century.
At a chance encounter at a Berlin soirée in 1928, the photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captures three very different women together in one frame: up-and-coming German actress Marlene Dietrich, who would wend her way into Hollywood as one of its lasting icons; Anna May Wong, the world's first Chinese American star, playing for bit parts while dreaming of breaking away from her father's modest laundry; and Leni Riefenstahl, whose work as a director of propaganda art films would first make her famous - then, infamous.
From this curious point of intersection, Delayed Rays of a Star lets loose the trajectories of these women's lives. From Weimar Berlin to LA's Chinatown, from a bucolic village in the Bavarian Alps to a luxury apartment on the Champs-Élysées, the different settings they inhabit are as richly textured as the roles they play: siren, victim, predator, or lover, each one a carefully calibrated performance. And in the orbit of each star live secondary players - a Chinese immigrant housemaid, a German soldier on leave from North Africa, a pompous Hollywood director - whose voices and viewpoints reveal the legacy each woman left in her own time, as well as in ours.
Amanda Lee Koe's playful, wry prose guides the listener dexterously around murky questions of identity, complicity, desire, and difference. Intimate and clear-eyed, Delayed Rays of a Star is a visceral depiction of womanhood - its particular hungers, its oblique calculations, and its eventual betrayals - and announces a bold new literary voice.
©2019 Amanda Lee Koe (P)2019 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“This is a voraciously intelligent, heartrending novel. Few books have so much life in them, or are so willing to explore the terrors of war and desire, the ruthlessness of genius. Maybe this novel can face the dark so fearlessly because it is itself so radiant, a blazing star. Amanda Lee Koe is a brilliant writer.” (Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You)
“With a cool eye, devastating honesty, and an abundance of compassion, Amanda Lee Koe traverses the first half of the 20th century to bring 21st-century insights into the complex sexuality of women, the effects of racism, and the ruins that fascism left in its wake. A profound examination of the agony of power, the caprice of fame, and the indignities of growing old, Delayed Rays of a Star is a rare gem - a page-turning, inventive literary novel that is learned and wise. An absolute must read.” (Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of Rabbits for Food)
“Koe’s ambitious and well-researched debut novel successfully melds historical fact with expansive and generous storytelling...Throughout, their stories contend with the notion of authenticity in life and art - of how performers define themselves in the public sphere and behind closed doors. Readers will find much to ponder in these vivid, fictionalized deep dives into three women who changed cinema.” (Publishers Weekly)
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Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character - lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.
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Subtle yet grand
- By jb on 10-12-15
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American Rose
- A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee
- By: Karen Abbott
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
With the critically acclaimed Sin in the Second City, best-selling author Karen Abbott “pioneered sizzle history” (USA Today). Now she returns with the gripping and expansive story of America’s coming-of-age - told through the extraordinary life of Gypsy Rose Lee and the world she survived and conquered. America in the Roaring Twenties. Vaudeville was king. Talking pictures were only a distant flicker. Speakeasies beckoned beyond dimly lit doorways; money flowed fast and free.
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Well done biography of a complicated Icon
- By Moire on 01-27-11
By: Karen Abbott
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City of Girls
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Gilbert
- Narrated by: Blair Brown
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love. In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance.
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A strong story
- By Anita Kristensen on 06-08-19
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Picture in the Sand
- By: Peter Blauner
- Narrated by: Sean Rohani
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Ali Hassan, an Egyptian-American businessman in Brooklyn, reveals a secret past of activism and heartbreak in an attempt to keep his hot-headed teenaged grandson from making the greatest mistake of his life. In a journey that begins amid the high-wattage glamour of the sets of Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments and leads to the deserts of Cairo and beyond, Ali describes how he landed a dream job as DeMille’s personal assistant and then found himself enmeshed in events that changed the course of history.
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Well narrated and worth the read
- By Mustella on 01-21-23
By: Peter Blauner
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The Royal Correspondent
- A Novel
- By: Alexandra Joel
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The author of The Paris Model captures the glamour, style, excitement, and romance of a bygone era in this sumptuous novel - set in the Sydney and London of the 1960s - about an up-and-coming young Australian reporter with a deadly secret.
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Story engaging. Narrator not so much.
- By Anne M. Kelley on 09-15-22
By: Alexandra Joel
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Stars over Sunset Boulevard
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Lee
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Los Angeles, present day. When an iconic hat worn by Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind ends up in Christine McAllister's vintage clothing boutique by mistake, her efforts to return it to its owner take her on a journey more enchanting than any classic movie.... Los Angeles, 1938. Violet Mayfield sets out to reinvent herself in Hollywood after her dream of becoming a wife and mother falls apart, and she lands a job on the film set of Gone with the Wind.
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Pass on this
- By Lulew on 03-24-17
By: Susan Meissner
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Russian Winter
- A Novel
- By: Daphne Kalotay
- Narrated by: Kathleen Gati
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In Russian Winter, the beautiful debut novel by critically acclaimed writer Daphne Kalotay, a famed ballerina’s jewelry auction in Boston reveals long-held secrets of love and family, friendship and rivalry, harkening back to Stalinist Russia. Called “tender, passionate, and moving” by Jenna Blum, the New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us, Russian Winter is a perfect choice for fans of the novels of Debra Dean (The Madonnas of Leningrad), Ann Patchett (Bel Canto), and Ian McEwan (Atonement).
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Read this review; Sophisticated and wonderful!
- By Cookie on 01-15-12
By: Daphne Kalotay
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Some Girls
- My Life in a Harem
- By: Jillian Lauren
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A jaw-dropping story of how a girl from the suburbs ends up in a prince's harem and emerges from the secret Xanadu both richer and wiser. At 18, Jillian Lauren was an NYU theater school dropout with a tip about an upcoming audition. The "casting director" told her that a rich businessman would pay pretty girls $20,000 if they stayed for two weeks to spice up his parties. Soon, Jillian was on a plane to Borneo, where she would spend the next 18 months in the harem of Prince Jefri Bolkiah....
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Boring, Pretentious Book
- By Marcos on 04-23-11
By: Jillian Lauren
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Autumn
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Melody Grove
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Fusing Keatsian mists and mellow fruitfulness with the vitality, the immediacy, and the color hit of Pop Art, Autumn is a witty excavation of the present by the past. The novel is a stripped-branches take on popular culture and a meditation, in a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, what harvest means.
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Incredible use of language
- By Mary on 03-06-17
By: Ali Smith
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Fault Lines
- A Novel
- By: Emily Itami
- Narrated by: Lydia Wilson
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Mizuki is a Japanese housewife. She has a hardworking husband, two adorable children, and a beautiful Tokyo apartment. It’s everything a woman could want, yet sometimes she wonders whether she would rather throw herself off the high-rise balcony than spend another evening not talking to her husband and hanging up laundry.
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Confused by the choice of narrator
- By Bri T. on 02-13-22
By: Emily Itami
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The Lonely Lady
- By: Harold Robbins
- Narrated by: Maria Debonair
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Meet JeriLee Randall, aspiring actress, ambitious writer, and sexual powerhouse. It is this ambition that takes her away from her tiny hometown of Port Clare and sets her on a collision course with her future. Surviving on determination and seduction, she makes her way to Broadway and then on to Hollywood. The bright lights mask a deeper darkness, and JeriLee is quickly drawn into a world of greed, drugs, casting couches, and smooth-talking power players.
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The Lonely Lady
- By Shelly-Ann Brown on 02-25-21
By: Harold Robbins
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East of the Sun
- By: Julia Gregson
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Autumn 1928. Three young women are on their way to India, each with a new life in mind. Rose, a beautiful but naive bride-to-be, is anxious about leaving her family and marrying a man she hardly knows. Victoria, her bridesmaid couldn't be happier to get away from her overbearing mother, and is determined to find herself a husband. And Viva, their inexperienced chaperone, is in search of the India of her childhood, ghosts from the past and freedom.
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Indian history takes a back seat to 3 young women
- By Richard on 05-24-16
By: Julia Gregson
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Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
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A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
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Marjorie Morningstar
- By: Herman Wouk
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 28 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Marjorie Morningstar is a love story. It presents one of the greatest characters in modern fiction: Marjorie, the pretty 17-year-old who left the respectability of New York's Central Park West to join the theater, live in the teeming streets of Greenwich Village, and seek love in the arms of a brilliant, enigmatic writer.
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Great story with really cheesy narration
- By James on 05-05-12
By: Herman Wouk
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Half Life
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Exceptional!
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Lights All Night Long
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Fifteen-year-old Ilya arrives in Louisiana from his native Russia for what should be the adventure of his life: a year in America as an exchange student. But all is not right in Ilya's world: He's consumed by the fate of his older brother, Vladimir, the magnetic rebel to Ilya's dutiful wunderkind, back in their tiny Russian hometown. Just before Ilya left, the murders of three young women rocked the town's usual calm, and Vladimir found himself in prison. With the help of Sadie, who has secrets of her own, Ilya embarks on a mission to prove Vladimir's innocence.
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Couldn't Stop Listening
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