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Did You Ever Have A Family
- Narrated by: Bill Clegg
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
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Publisher's summary
The stunning debut novel from best-selling author Bill Clegg is a magnificently powerful story about a circle of people who find solace in the least likely of places as they cope with a horrific tragedy.
On the eve of her daughter's wedding, June Reid's life is completely devastated when a shocking disaster takes the lives of her daughter, her daughter's fiancé, her ex-husband, and her boyfriend, Luke - her entire family, all gone in a moment. And June is the only survivor.
Alone and directionless, June drives across the country, away from her small Connecticut town. In her wake a community emerges, weaving a beautiful and surprising web of connections through shared heartbreak.
From the couple running a motel on the Pacific Ocean where June eventually settles into a quiet half life to the wedding's caterer whose bill has been forgotten to Luke's mother, the shattered outcast of the town - everyone touched by the tragedy is changed as truths about their near and far histories finally come to light.
Elegant and heartrending, and one of the most accomplished fiction debuts of the year, Did You Ever Have a Family is an absorbing, unforgettable tale that reveals humanity at its best through forgiveness and hope. At its core it is a celebration of family - the ones we are born with and the ones we create.
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Turtle Moon transports the listener to Verity, Florida, a place where anything can happen during the month of May, when migrating sea turtles come to town, mistaking the glow of the streetlights for the moon. A young single mother is murdered in her apartment and her baby is gone. Keith, a 12-year-old boy in the same apartment building also disappears. In pursuit of the baby, the boy and the killer, are Keith's divorced mother and a cop who himself was once considered the meanest boy in town.
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An enchanting story
- By A.J. on 05-09-11
By: Alice Hoffman
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Lost Lake
- By: Sarah Addison Allen
- Narrated by: Janet Metzger
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The first time Eby Pim saw Lost Lake, it was on a picture postcard. Just an old photo and a few words on a small square of heavy stock, but when she saw it, she knew she was seeing her future. That was half a lifetime ago. Now Lost Lake is about to slip into Eby’s past. Her husband, George, is long passed. Most of her demanding extended family are gone.
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Pure Sarah Addison Allen
- By tooonce72 on 01-27-14
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After Visiting Friends
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- By: Michael Hainey
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Michael Hainey had just turned six when his uncle knocked on his family's back door one morning with the tragic news: Bob Hainey, Michael's father, was found alone near his car on Chicago's North Side, dead, of an apparent heart attack. Thirty-five years old, a young assistant copy desk chief at the Chicago Sun-Times, Bob was a bright and shining star in the competitive, hard-living world of newspapers, one that involved booze-soaked nights that bled into dawn. And then suddenly he was gone.
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Son's Search for Father Brings on Self-knowledge
- By sheila kehoe on 08-15-13
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The Walking People
- By: Mary Beth Keane
- Narrated by: Sile Bermingham
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Greta Cahill never believed she would leave her village in the west of Ireland until she found herself on a ship bound for New York, along with her sister Johanna and a boy named Michael Ward. Labeled a "softheaded goose" by her family, Greta discovers that in America she can fall in love, raise her own family, and earn a living.
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Irish immigratn story
- By Chrissie on 09-10-13
By: Mary Beth Keane
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Saints for All Occasions
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- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
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Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
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The narration ruined it
- By Janis Reynolds on 06-12-17
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The Great Failure
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- Narrated by: Natalie Goldberg
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Original Recording
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"The Great Failure is a boundless embrace, leaving nothing out. I wanted to learn the truth, to become whole. If I could touch the dark nature in someone else, I could know it in myself." So begins Natalie Goldberg in this candid exploration of her life. Here, Goldberg makes sense of primary relationships between father and daughter, teacher and student, and exemplifies the accomplishment available when creating daily writing practices.
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If you have been let down by anyone. Listen
- By Mia on 04-19-18
By: Natalie Goldberg
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The Daisy Children
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- By: Sofia Grant
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
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When Katie Garrett gets the news that she’s received an inheritance from the grandmother she hardly knew, it couldn’t have come at a better time. She flees Boston and travels to rural Texas. There, she’s greeted by her distant cousin Scarlett. Friendly and flamboyant, Scarlett couldn’t be more different from sensible Katie. And as they begin the task of sorting through their grandmother’s possessions, they discover letters and photographs that uncover the hidden truths about their shared history, and the long-forgotten tragedy of the New London school explosion of 1937 that binds them.
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Multigenerational storyline lacked dignity
- By John F. Oldani, Jr. on 06-07-24
By: Sofia Grant
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Nightwatcher
- By: Wendy Corsi Staub
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Nightwatcher, the first in a riveting new series, takes place in the days immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A serial killer is loose in New York City, and Allison Taylor may be the only one who can identify him. She doesn’t know the killer has now set his sights on her—and unless she acts fast, she’ll be his next victim.
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Nightwatcher!!!
- By barbara on 06-07-13
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The Wednesday Letters
- By: Jason F. Wright
- Narrated by: Art Allen
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Jack and Laurel have been married for 39 years. They've lived a good life and appear to have had the perfect marriage. With his wife cradled in his arms, and before Jack takes his last breath, he scribbles his last “Wednesday Letter.” When their adult children arrive to arrange the funeral, they discover boxes and boxes full of love letters that their father wrote to their mother each week on Wednesday. As they begin to open and read the letters, the children begin to uncover the shocking truth about the past.
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EXCELLENT!!!!!
- By Boomer on 02-28-15
By: Jason F. Wright
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How to Survive a Summer
- A Novel
- By: Nick White
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
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Grad student Will Dillard has largely buried memories of the summer he spent at a camp intended to "cure" homosexuality. But when he finds out a horror movie based on the camp is hitting theaters, he's forced to face his past - and his role in another camper's death. As he recounts the events surrounding his "failed rehabilitation", Will strikes out on an impromptu road trip back home to Mississippi, eventually returning to the abandoned campgrounds to solve the mysteries of that pivotal summer.
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A story full of heart and healing
- By ZippyBippy on 05-06-18
By: Nick White
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What listeners say about Did You Ever Have A Family
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Bonny
- 09-09-15
Tragedy and grief written incredibly well
Did You Ever Have a Family may possibly be one of the best books I've read this year. If they're done well, I'm a big fan of stories told through the eyes, hearts, and feelings of different characters and multiple perspectives, and Bill Clegg does this incredibly well. This heartbreaking, devastating, almost unimaginable tragedy is a very tough story to tell (and read), but Clegg drew me in with his characters, his writing, and plot.
June Reid loses everything – her daughter, her daughter's fiancee, her boyfriend, ex-husband, all of her identification, clothing and possessions – in an explosive fire the night before her daughter's wedding. A woman gossiping with friends in a coffee shop asks, “How do you recover from that? How would you even begin?” As Clegg begins to answer those questions and the story progresses, small but pertinent pieces are added by those affected directly and peripherally by the tragedy. These pieces recounted by characters serve to further the main story line, but also elucidate their own lives and stories. I had some trouble keeping the characters' relationships straight in the beginning, but found the novel so compelling that I kept reading. Stick with it; the story comes together, and the reward is worth a little reading effort. There are two small things (possible spoilers so I won't include them here) that kept me from giving Did You Ever Have a Family five stars, but this book is still entirely deserving of its place on the Man Booker Longlist.
I read Wave last year, and was surprised that I liked a memoir of unbearable grief so much. Did You Ever Have a Family deals with grief just as beautifully and truthfully. I'll be thinking about this book and its characters for a long time.
A note about the narration: Bill Clegg narrates this book himself, but may not have been the best choice. He has a very flat, blunted affect, which is understandable given the nature of the story, but I had trouble distinguishing when a new character and chapter began. The story is compelling and the narration didn't ruin that for me, but it would easily have been a 5-star listen for me with better narration.
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17 people found this helpful
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- Syd Young
- 02-29-16
Did you ever wonder how writers get so deep?
"Elegant and heartrending" describes this well. Part non-southern "As I Lay Dying," this book has a lot to say about life as we currently know it, as it makes you want to rush out and touch and hug and love on your loved ones.
Not very many writers can expose so deep, Snarky New York Times Book Review notwithstanding.
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- jjoh11
- 09-08-15
Writers don't always make the best readers
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
I was really enjoying the book but found the narration was so bad I had to buy the written book to finish it. Please consider re-releasing with a different reader.
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28 people found this helpful
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- E. Wallen
- 05-11-18
Why do authors think they are readers?
This book was grim grim grim....and it was made worse by the author being the reader. Why??? Was it vanity? Was it a cost saving measure? I cannot recommend this audio book. I would not put someone else through this. I had trouble keeping up with the characters because it was read with the same monotonous voice. I had to rewind several times..."now, who is this?" I'm sure the story was much better than I give it credit for, but I just couldn't get past it.
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1 person found this helpful
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- LuLu
- 01-11-21
Really enjoyed this book.
This was a thought provoking read for me. I had a little trouble keeping characters straight in the beginning but once I got these straight I was intrigued and sometimes saddened by these characters.
Interesting stories past and present and interwoven together. Good reading.
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- Barbara Denberg
- 10-18-20
just amazing
This is a story of loss and how deeply it affects people. And it is a story of life going on but not as before. There is no happy ending and there is no resolution that you know in time things will be better. What you are left with is a tragedy that encompasses the two protagonists and other players in the story and their background and some sliver of hope. But it's enough...more than enough.
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- Debra
- 10-11-15
Did You Ever Have a Family
Several reviews have not like this book because it is read by the author and I guess they feel his reading is not animated. However, I loved the book and the reading by the author. This is a beautifully written story of loss and grief and I think it would be diminished the over-theatrical readings that many audio books have and thought the simple narrative reading style of the author was very appropriate.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Meredith White
- 10-03-15
You sing my soul.
I'm speechless, but I feel the need to thank the author. for this stunning rendition of love and pain. Mistakes, and accidents, and forgiveness,and love. Thank you for reading it, it was perfect.
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- MNC
- 03-30-16
Heart wrenching
Beautifully written and narrated. A heart wrenching story of family ,of life ,of love , loss, regrets and no regrets. A wonderful cast of characters all woven together slowly
Having had a fire in my own house a few years ago , which we came home to find burning , I am even more grateful for all that remained after listening to this story.
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- Shawn
- 03-28-16
This is my new favorite book of all time
I can't exactly put into words why I loved this book so much. It was tragic and beautiful and magical. And I could not stop listening, but as I neared the end, I wanted to slow down because I did not want it to end. It is a rare gem.
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