After the Parade Audiobook By Lori Ostlund cover art

After the Parade

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

After the Parade

By: Lori Ostlund
Narrated by: Sean Runnette
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.79

Buy for $25.79

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Sensitive, big-hearted, and achingly self-conscious, 40-year-old Aaron Englund long ago escaped the confines of his Midwestern hometown, but he still feels like an outcast. After 20 years under the Pygmalion-like direction of his older partner, Walter, Aaron at last decides it is time to stop letting life happen to him and to take control of his own fate.

But soon after establishing himself in San Francisco - where he alternates between a shoddy garage apartment and the absurdly ramshackle ESL school where he teaches - Aaron sees that real freedom will not come until he has made peace with his memories of Morton, Minnesota: a cramped town whose 400 souls form a constellation of Aaron's childhood heartbreaks and hopes.

After Aaron's father died in the town parade, it was the larger-than life misfits of his childhood - a sardonic, wheelchair bound dwarf named Clarence; a generous, obese baker named Bernice; a kindly aunt preoccupied with dreams of The Rapture - who helped Aaron find his place in a provincial world hostile to difference. But Aaron's sense of rejection runs deep: When Aaron was 17, Dolores - Aaron's loving yet selfish and enigmatic mother - vanished one night with the town pastor. Aaron hasn't heard from Dolores in more than 20 years, but when a shambolic PI named Bill offers a key to closure, Aaron must confront his own role in his troubled past and rethink his place in a world of unpredictable, life-changing forces.

Lori Ostlund's debut novel is an openhearted contemplation of how we grow up and move on, how we can turn our deepest wounds into our greatest strengths. Written with homespun charm and unceasing vitality, After the Parade is a glorious new anthem for the outsider.

©2015 Original Material © 2015 by Lori Ostlund, recorded by arrangement with Scribner, a division of Simon and Schuster, Inc. (P)2015 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Coming of Age Family Life Fiction Literary Fiction Heartfelt Witty
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

"Lori Ostlund's wonderful novel After the Parade should come with a set of instructions: Be perfectly still. Listen carefully. Peer beneath every placid surface. Be alive to the possibility of wonder." (Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls and Bridge of Sighs
"As full-bodied and full-blooded a novel as I've read in a long time. The prose sparkles, and the author is so smart and so kind to her characters: a rare combination and so refreshing to read." (Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish and The Kings and Queens of Roam)

What listeners say about After the Parade

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    24
  • 4 Stars
    16
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    4
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    25
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    22
  • 4 Stars
    11
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    5

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Narrator

Too much bodily function discussion. A very meh book. But glad I finished. Aaron seems like he’s on the spectrum.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!