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Second Place
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Kate Fleetwood
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
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Publisher's summary
A haunting fable of art, family, and fate from the author of the Outline trilogy.
A woman invites a famous artist to use her guesthouse in the remote coastal landscape where she lives with her family. Powerfully drawn to his paintings, she believes his vision might penetrate the mystery at the center of her life. But as a long, dry summer sets in, his provocative presence itself becomes an enigma - and disrupts the calm of her secluded household.
Second Place, Rachel Cusk’s electrifying new novel, is a study of female fate and male privilege, the geometries of human relationships, and the moral questions that animate our lives. It reminds us of art’s capacity to uplift - and to destroy.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Critic reviews
Chicago Tribune Best Books of the Year, 2021
The Guardian (UK) Best Books of the Year, 2021
National Book Critics Circle Award - Nominee, 2021
Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year, 2021
New York Magazine Best Books of the Year, 2021
Vogue Magazine Best Books of the Year, 2021
Man Booker Award - Nominee, 2021
Time Magazine Best Books of the Year, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year, 2021
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A livewire debut from Dantiel W. Moniz, one of the most exciting discoveries in today's literary landscape, Milk Blood Heat depicts the sultry lives of Floridians in intergenerational tales that contemplate human connection, race, womanhood, inheritance, and the elemental darkness in us all. Set among the cities and suburbs of Florida, each story delves into the ordinary worlds of young girls, women, and men who find themselves confronted by extraordinary moments of violent personal reckoning.
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Wonderful
- By Anonymous User on 05-28-21
By: Dantiel W. Moniz
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The Eighth Life
- By: Nino Haratischvili
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 40 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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At the start of the 20th century, on the edge of the Russian empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. A caution which is justified: this is a recipe for ecstasy that carries a very bitter aftertaste....
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Great Historical Fiction about Georgia and the Soviet Union
- By Amazon Customer on 05-29-21
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The Bradshaw Variations
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Cusk
- Narrated by: Juanita McMahon
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Thomas Bradshaw and Tonie Swann are experiencing the classic symptoms of marriage in its middle years: comfortable house, happy enough daughter, and an eerie sense that life might be happening elsewhere. Then Tonie accepts a big promotion at work and Thomas agrees to become a stay-at-home dad. While Thomas is suddenly faced with the daily silence of an empty house, Tonie finds herself alive to previously unimagined possibilities. And at the head of the family, the aging Bradshaw parents continue their marital dynamic of bickering and petty undermining.
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Brilliant but tedious
- By Fred Ovrom on 12-14-21
By: Rachel Cusk
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Happening
- By: Annie Ernaux
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 1 hr and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1963, Annie Ernaux, 23 and unattached, realizes she is pregnant. Shame arises in her like a plague: Understanding that her pregnancy will mark her and her family as social failures, she knows she cannot keep the child. In a France where abortion was illegal, she attempted, in vain, to self-administer the abortion with a knitting needle. Fearful and desperate, she finally located an abortionist and ended up in a hospital emergency ward where she nearly died. In Happening, Ernaux sifts through her memories and her journal entries dating from those days.
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Heartbreaking
- By Lynn Thompson on 05-19-23
By: Annie Ernaux
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Thirst for Salt
- By: Madelaine Lucas
- Narrated by: Madelaine Lucas
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s hard to remember now that I was once that girl, lying in the sand in my red swimsuit and swimming late into the day. Sharkbait, he called me. It’s in the water where she first sees him: a local man almost twenty years her senior. Adrift in the summer after finishing college, a young woman is on holiday with her mother in an isolated Australian coastal town. Finding herself pulled to Jude, the man in the water, she begins losing herself in the simple, seductive rhythms of his everyday life.
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Beautifully written novel ruined by weak story
- By K. Schuster on 05-30-23
By: Madelaine Lucas
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The Mars Room
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Kushner
- Narrated by: Rachel Kushner
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Featuring original music by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon! It's 2003 and Romy Hall is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women's Correctional Facility, deep in California's Central Valley. Outside is the world from which she has been severed: the San Francisco of her youth and her young son, Jackson. Inside is a new reality: thousands of women hustling for the essentials needed to survive; the bluffing and pageantry and acts of violence by guards and prisoners alike; and the absurdities of institutional living, which Kushner evokes with great humor and precision.
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Too bleak for me; well-written
- By Margaret on 08-09-18
By: Rachel Kushner
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Saving Agnes
- By: Rachel Cusk
- Narrated by: Alexandra Fuller
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of a young British woman's first affair and entry into adulthood.
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most boring book I've ever read.
- By Lee C. Bendig on 05-28-15
By: Rachel Cusk
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A Woman's Story
- By: Annie Ernaux, Tanya Leslie
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 1 hr and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Upon her mother’s death from Alzheimer’s, Annie Ernaux embarks on a daunting journey back through time, as she seeks to “capture the real woman, the one who existed independently from me, born on the outskirts of a small Normandy town, and who died in the geriatric ward of a hospital in the suburbs of Paris.” She explores the bond between mother and daughter, tenuous and unshakable at once, the alienating worlds that separate them, and the inescapable truth that we must lose the ones we love.
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Beautiful Tribute, Beautiful Writing
- By Amazon Customer on 07-07-23
By: Annie Ernaux, and others
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Pure Colour
- A Novel
- By: Sheila Heti
- Narrated by: Sheila Heti
- Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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In this first draft of the world, a woman named Mira leaves home to study. There, she meets Annie, whose tremendous power opens Mira’s chest like a portal—to what, she doesn’t know. When Mira is older, her beloved father dies, and his spirit passes into her.
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Nothing else like it
- By Teri Kline on 03-20-22
By: Sheila Heti
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Endpapers
- By: Jennifer Savran Kelly
- Narrated by: Dani Martineck
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s 2003, and artist Dawn Levit is stuck. A bookbinder who works in conservation at the Met, she spends her free time scouting the city’s street art, hoping something might spark inspiration. Instead, everything looks like a dead end. And art isn’t the only thing that feels wrong: wherever she turns, her gender identity clashes with the rest of her life. Her relationship, once anchored by shared queerness, is falling apart as her boyfriend Lukas increasingly seems to be attracted to Dawn only when she’s at her most masculine.
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A vulnerable sincere suspenseful story beautifully wrapped in gender nonconforming
- By Shera on 03-11-23
What listeners say about Second Place
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kate Juliff
- 08-08-21
Beautifully executed. Impressionism in words, philosophy in motion
I enjoyed “Second Place” though the only characters that rang true were M, the writer and L the artist. The others were shallow.
The philosophizing was annoying at times, insightful occasionally. I recommend it if only for the exquisite writing. Her picture of paras is Impressionism in English words,
It slows down a bit about 3/4 through but is worth preserving to the end. Don’t think it’ll win the Booker, but for a novel written in these troubled times of Brexit, climate crisis and Covid, it hits the mark though these tragedies are not directly alluded to..
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- Xmimix
- 01-03-22
Her best book to date…
If you love Rachel Cusk, as I do, you will rejoice in this book of hers. An intriguing and thoughtful story and the narration is outstanding.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-29-22
Incredible!
Best audiobook I’ve ever listened to. The performance is electrifying and the prose, nourishment for the soul. Must listen!
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- TCBailey
- 03-28-22
Horrible narrator, boring story
The narrator when voicing other characters was like nails on a chalk board. The story was whiny and self indulgent.
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2 people found this helpful
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- JKG
- 02-20-22
The problem with Audible
Truly, I expected more from Kate Fleetwood and Audible. This is an annoying performance that brings into view the difficulties of narrating novels. The male voices are all mannered and unpleasant, as if life or novels gave out those cues. The unpleasant L speaks with a drawl, unless he’s using the more menacing croak of the villain in a film made for children. Little is left to the listener’s imagination, when the book itself wants to engage just that faculty.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Paul
- 10-13-21
Rachel Cusk is so brilliant!
Oh my God. Thank you Audible algorithm for recommending this to me. But then, it should be obvious that I hang on every word she writes.
Before I downloaded I read a couple of reviews that crabbed about the narration. I don’t see what their problem was.
Interestingly the story takes place during the pandemic, but that formed only the most distant backdrop, alluded to by snippets like, "...now that travel had become less of a problem..."
Fans will not be disappointed: there is the obligatory cringy scene where a man, with the greatest awkwardness, tries to force himself on the POV character.
I never tire of Rachel Cusk's startlingly original turns of phrase coupled with her penetrating wisdom and disarming vulnerability. If you are anything like the fanboy I am don't pass this up.
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- Jonathan
- 08-30-21
Great book, acting fail.
This is an awful performance. I have never had such a visceral reaction to a reader. The voices she adopts for the characters are so exaggerated, especially for the men. it's almost funny, but mostly just annoying. Rachel Cusk deserves better!
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- Naveen S.
- 08-30-21
Kind of liked it?
A bit rambling and boring but the author uses beautiful and precise language which I liked. There is no real plot but I guess that would be a feature and not a bug from this author’s perspective. Nice unromantic view of what might be considered an “impressive” man particularly in contrast to the other characters.
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- Oleksandra
- 02-10-22
Amazing book
I think this is one of author’s greatest books ever. It was a pure pleasure…
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- barbara
- 08-31-22
The Narrator is distractingly bad
It’s interesting to read a book yourself (words on the page) and another to be read to. I’ve read (and listened to) several of Rachel Cusk books - I can hear Cusk’s voice in my head. Listening to this, in my opinion a ridiculously awful narrator is completely ruining it for me. She is getting in the way of the book with her unconvincing voices! yikes
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