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The Free
- A Novel (P.S.)
- Narrated by: Willy Vlautin
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
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Publisher's summary
In his heartbreaking yet hopeful fourth novel, award-winning author Willy Vlautin demonstrates his extraordinary talent for illuminating the disquiet of modern American life, captured in the experiences of three memorable characters looking for meaning in distressing times.
Severely wounded in the Iraq war, Leroy Kervin has lived in a group home for eight years. Frustrated by the simplest daily routines, he finds his existence has become unbearable. An act of desperation helps him disappear deep into his mind, into a world of romance and science fiction, danger and adventure where he is whole once again.
Freddie McCall, the night man at Leroy's group home, works two jobs yet still can't make ends meet. He's lost his wife and kids, and the house is next. Medical bills have buried him in debt, a situation that propels him to consider a lucrative - and dangerous - proposition.
Pauline Hawkins, a nurse, cares for the sick and wounded, including Leroy. She also looks after her mentally ill elderly father. Yet she remains emotionally removed, until she meets a young runaway who touches something deep and unexpected inside her.
In crystalline prose, both beautiful and devastating, this 'major realist talent' (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) considers the issues transforming ordinary people's lives - the cost of health care, the lack of economic opportunity, the devastating scars of war - creating an extraordinary contemporary portrait that is also a testament to the resiliency of the human heart.
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- By: Raymond Carver
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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With this, his first collection of stories, Raymond Carver breathed new life into the American short story and instantly became both the recognized master of the form and one of our best-loved fiction writers. Carver shows us the humor and tragedy that dwell in the hearts of ordinary people; his stories are the classics of our time.
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Humanity at the Breaking Point
- By Darwin8u on 03-31-19
By: Raymond Carver
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The Rabbit Factory
- By: Marshall Karp
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte, James Jenner
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Marshall Karp is an acclaimed playwright known for his witty sense of humor and crackling dialogue. His debut novel The Rabbit Factory stars the irreverent LAPD detective duo of Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs. Dean Lamaar is the architect of an entertainment empire and the creator of iconic characters like Rambunctious Rabbit and McGreedy the Moose.
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Bizarre but engaging mystery.1st-rate performance.
- By MidwestGeek on 12-19-12
By: Marshall Karp
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This Dark Road to Mercy
- A Novel
- By: Wiley Cash
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Erik Bergmann, Scott Sowers
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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This Dark Road to Mercy is a tale of love and atonement, blood and vengeance, a story that involves two young sisters, a wayward father, and an enemy determined to see him pay for his sins. When their mother dies unexpectedly, twelve-year-old Easter Quillby and her six-year-old sister, Ruby, are shuffled into the foster care system in Gastonia, North Carolina, a little town not far from the Appalachian Mountains. But just as they settle into their new life, their errant father, Wade, an ex-minor-league baseball player whom they haven't seen in years, suddenly reappears and steals them away in the middle of the night.
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Easter offers chance at redemption; but no spark
- By W Perry Hall on 01-31-14
By: Wiley Cash
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The Golden State
- A Novel
- By: Lydia Kiesling
- Narrated by: Amanda Dolan
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In Lydia Kiesling's razor-sharp debut novel, The Golden State, we accompany Daphne, a young mother on the edge of a breakdown, as she flees her sensible but strained life in San Francisco for the high desert of Altavista with her toddler Honey. Bucking under the weight of being a single parent - her Turkish husband is unable to return to the United States because of a "processing error" - Daphne takes refuge in a mobile home left to her by her grandparents in hopes that the quiet will bring clarity.
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Tedious read but delightful reader Amanda Dolan
- By Eric on 02-14-19
By: Lydia Kiesling
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Mecca
- By: Susan Straight
- Narrated by: Patricia R. Floyd, Frankie Corzo, Shaun Taylor-Corbett
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Johnny Frías has California in his blood. A descendant of the state’s indigenous people and Mexican settlers, he has Southern California’s forgotten towns and canyons in his soul. He spends his days as a highway patrolman pulling over speeders, ignoring their racist insults, and pushing past the trauma of his rookie year, when he killed a man assaulting a young woman named Bunny, who ran from the scene, leaving Johnny without a witness.
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An eye opening read
- By Anonymous User on 10-10-22
By: Susan Straight
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The Night Always Comes
- A Novel
- By: Willy Vlautin
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Barely 30, Lynette is exhausted. Saddled with bad credit and juggling multiple jobs, some illegally, she’s been diligently working to buy the house she lives in with her mother and developmentally disabled brother Kenny. Portland’s housing prices have nearly quadrupled in 15 years, and the owner is giving them a good deal. Lynette knows it’s their last best chance to own their own home - and obtain the security they’ve never had. While she has enough for the down payment, she needs her mother to cover the rest of the asking price.
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Willy knows tragedy
- By Phil Bailey on 08-03-21
By: Willy Vlautin
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Stick
- By: Andrew Smith
- Narrated by: Josh Hurley
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Fourteen-year-old Stark McClellan (nicknamed Stick because he’s tall and thin) is bullied for being "deformed" - he was born with only one ear. His older brother, Bosten, is always there to defend Stick. But the boys can’t defend each other from their abusive parents. When Stick realizes Bosten is gay, he knows that to survive his father's anger, Bosten must leave home. Stick has to find his brother, or he will never feel whole again. In his search, he will encounter good people, bad people, and people who are simply indifferent to kids from the wrong side of the tracks. But he never loses hope of finding love - and his brother.
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Amazing book!
- By Christopher Gaines on 02-19-18
By: Andrew Smith
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Please Ignore Vera Dietz
- By: A. S. King
- Narrated by: Lynde Houck
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything. So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone - the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to? Edgy and gripping, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is an unforgettable novel: Smart, funny, dramatic, and always surprising.
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Moving, disturbing, and humorous
- By Julie on 08-26-11
By: A. S. King
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Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See
- By: Juliann Garey
- Narrated by: Dan Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In her tour-de-force first novel, Juliann Garey takes us inside the restless mind, ravaged heart, and anguished soul of Greyson Todd, a successful Hollywood studio executive who leaves his wife and young daughter and for a decade travels the world giving free reign to the bipolar disorder he's been forced to keep hidden for almost 20 years.
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Psychosis or Syphilis?
- By Vira on 04-02-13
By: Juliann Garey
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Fourth of July Creek
- A Novel
- By: Smith Henderson
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, Jenna Lamia
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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After trying to help Benjamin Pearl, an undernourished, nearly feral 11-year-old boy living in the Montana wilderness, social worker Pete Snow comes face-to-face with the boy's profoundly disturbed father, Jeremiah. With courage and caution, Pete slowly earns a measure of trust from this paranoid survivalist itching for a final conflict that will signal the coming End Times. But as Pete's own family spins out of control, Pearl's activities spark the full-blown interest of the FBI, putting Pete at the center of a massive manhunt from which no one will emerge unscathed.
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The Ghost of Tom Joad & the Wrath of Grapes
- By Mel on 06-30-14
By: Smith Henderson
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She's Come Undone
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally rolls into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before really going belly-up.
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Really disappointing narrator!
- By Jessica Williams on 01-21-12
By: Wally Lamb
What listeners say about The Free
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- W Perry Hall
- 03-11-14
Free Fallin', Brilliantly
What a brilliant, unique narrative via the perspectives of three characters, one primarily via an allegorical dream.
Each intersect at the hospital where Leroy has been taken from a group home after falling down a flight of stairs after having a momentary state of suicidal clarity out of brain trauma suffered via a roadside bomb in Iraq.
^^^^^^^^^
"... that night, for the first time since the explosion, he woke with clarity. Memories flooded into him. He could recall his routines, the week's menu, what time he went to bed and which days he took a shower. He could remember his mother bringing him takeout food and sitting next to him while they watched TV. He could remember his girlfriend, her eyes and face, and the birthmark on her calf and her walking around in her underwear. He could suddenly recall the way she laughed, the sound of her voice when she was upset, the way she sneezed, and the way she sighed sadly when the alarm went off in the morning."
What was happening to him?
***
"He remembered suddenly the long months when every time he closed his eyes it felt like he was drowning in mud. And then there were periods when his thoughts fell into nothing but frustration and violence. How days would pass when every time he heard a door closing or opening he felt certain someone was coming to kill him. The fear of that would engulf him and when the fear passed, the fog would again come and he wouldn't be able to remember anything. ... Was this all his life was? Was this clarity just another illusion, a trick? He knew that most likely he would close his eyes and sleep would come and the clarity would disappear and the frustration, the bleak thoughts, and the fog would return. But at that moment, on that night, he had a window and he decided to escape through it."
"He decided he would kill himself."
^^^^^^^
Freddie is the night man at the "second-rate group home for disabled men in Washington State." He's unable to pay his bills though burning the candle at both ends with a day job running a paint store for a lazy, fat James-Dobson-junkie who inherited the store. After being left destitute by medical bills for one of his daughters and trying to keep his house, Freddie's wife takes both daughters out of state to run off with her lover. He is constantly afraid he will never make it out of this all-work, no-sleep state, lose everything and never have his daughters again.
Pauleen is the hospital night nurse with a fear of relationships, after having been abandoned by her mom when she was 5 and a boyfriend a few years back who didn't want marriage. She must drop in frequently on her mentally ill father. She learns much from her encounters with a young female runaway.
While Leroy's under intensive medical care, his nightmare is so very like a true dream (at least mine), the closest I've encountered in all of literature: varying places and times, sprinkled with reality overlaying a dream sequence in which he and his girlfriend are on the run from "The Free," a mixed military/militia group of "real" "patriots" trying to capture and kill them. But, it is his time spent with her again, his love for her via this life-like dreamworld that sets him free from the fog, the bleakness, the pain.
All three face their fears and take their own paths toward growth and a bit of redemption.
The dialogue is fresh, the main characters so likeable and the author does an admirable job narrating his book.
I give this 5+ stars and highly recommend it.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Henry
- 02-02-19
The feels are strong in this one
In this audio book, Willie "maudlin" Vlautin reads as well as he writes, both simply and exquisitely. A bit more complex and multi-dimensional than his other, movie-inspiring works, this one portrays a half-dozen tough yet sensitive characters afflicted with burdens typical of Western American life. Some succumb, but the major characters, whose lives intertwine, each in their own way come to terms with their lot through personal transformation and perseverance.
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- earbookworm
- 12-30-23
Empathy for the underdog
Willy Vlautin’s empathy for the forgotten, overlooked, and less fortunate among us is unbounded. Because he cares so much about his characters, so do we. Their simple and profound acts of kindness to one another mean the world. And he narrates in a simple, unaffected, but very effective way. Thanks to Eddie Muller for calling attention to this underrated writer.
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