All Things Cease to Appear
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Kirsten Potter
About this listen
A dark, riveting, beautifully written book—by “a brilliant novelist,” according to Richard Bausch—that combines noir and the gothic in a story about two families entwined in their own unhappiness, with, at its heart, a gruesome and unsolved murder
Late one winter afternoon in upstate New York, George Clare comes home to find his wife killed and their three-year-old daughter alone—for how many hours?—in her room across the hall. He had recently, begrudgingly, taken a position at a nearby private college (far too expensive for local kids to attend) teaching art history, and moved his family into a tight-knit, impoverished town that has lately been discovered by wealthy outsiders in search of a rural idyll. George is of course the immediate suspect—the question of his guilt echoing in a story shot through with secrets both personal and professional.
While his parents rescue him from suspicion, a persistent cop is stymied at every turn in proving Clare a heartless murderer. And three teenage brothers (orphaned by tragic circumstances) find themselves entangled in this mystery, not least because the Clares had moved into their childhood home, a once-thriving dairy farm. The pall of death is ongoing, and relentless; behind one crime there are others, and more than 20 years will pass before a hard kind of justice is finally served.
A rich and complex portrait of a psychopath and a marriage, this is also an astute study of the various taints that can scar very different families, and even an entire community. Elizabeth Brundage is an essential talent who has given us a true modern classic.
©2016 Elizabeth Brundage (P)2016 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Mesmerizing . . . Extraordinarily gripping and suspenseful . . . A beautifully written novel that works on many levels. It is thoughtful and lyrical, a penetrating study of a psychopath and a deeply disturbing portrait of a doomed marriage, but also a meditation on the deceptiveness of all appearances and on ‘the big fairy tale of America.” —Kate Horsley, Crimeculture
“A marriage, a sociopath, a family destroyed by the economy, the things we do for love—all finely drawn. . . . All of the [cast] are sympathetic and suspicious in equal measure, a result of Brundage’s ability to peel away the onionskin layers of emotion that define any relationship. As the clues accumulate and the killer is revealed, the truth becomes both horrifying and inevitable. In the end, justice is done and redemption found, though not at one might expect, which makes the book all the more satisfying.” —Vanessa Friedman, The New York Times Book Review
“A beautifully written treat. . . . as much a disturbing portrait of family and town life as it is a provocative mystery.” —Estelle Tang, Elle
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- By Sarah on 08-01-17
By: Tobias Wolff
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A Thousand Acres
- By: Jane Smiley
- Narrated by: C. J. Critt
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Three daughters and their husbands are pulled into a tangle of love, jealousy, and fear when their father, Larry Cook, grows too old to manage the family's fertile thousand-acre farm. As each couple struggles with their own tragedies and challenges, they know their father is judging them in light of the weighty inheritance that hovers within their reach.
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good book bad reader
- By C. Carlson on 08-07-08
By: Jane Smiley
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Where I'm Calling From
- Selected Stories
- By: Raymond Carver
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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By the time of his early death in 1988, Raymond Carver had established himself as one of the great practitioners of the American short story. Where I'm Calling From, his last collection, encompasses classic stories from Cathedral, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, and earlier Carver volumes, along with seven new works previously unpublished in book form.
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Love Carver, But Dietz Ruins It With Reading
- By Noirbat on 05-10-18
By: Raymond Carver
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Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
- Stories
- 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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Garden Spells
- By: Sarah Addison Allen
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers.
Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures.
Together again in the house they grew up in, the Waverley sisters realize they must deal with their common legacy - if they are ever to feel at home in Bascom - or with each other.
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I so want to give it 5 stars...!!!!
- By Joihelene on 10-09-10
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The Story of Arthur Truluv
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Three people find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of belonging in this deeply moving novel. Arthur, an old widower struggling to overcome his grief, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who avoids school by hiding out where Arthur goes every day for lunch. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation.
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Sickly Sweet
- By Amazon Customer on 01-19-18
By: Elizabeth Berg
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The Pull of the Moon
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In the middle of her life, Nan decides to leave her husband at home and begin an impromptu trek across the country, carrying with her a turquoise leather journal she intends to fill. The Pull of the Moon is a novel about a woman coming to terms with issues of importance to all women. In her journal, Nan addresses the thorniness - and the allure - of marriage, the sweet ties to children, and the gifts and lessons that come from random encounters.
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For women over 50
- By Laura on 07-07-15
By: Elizabeth Berg
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Strong Motion
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of ecological upheaval (a rash of earthquakes on the North Shore) and odd luck: the first one kills his grandmother. Louis tries to maintain his independence, but falls in love with a Harvard seismologist whose discoveries about the earthquakes' cause complicate everything.
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Compelling Story, Ridiculous Narrator
- By DianeReads on 02-28-16
By: Jonathan Franzen
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The Lost Girls
- A Novel
- By: Heather Young
- Narrated by: Alice Rosengard, Laurel Schroeder
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family - her father commits suicide, and her mother and two older sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child. Sixty years later, Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person who might care: her grandniece, Justine.
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Engaging story spanning three generations.
- By LilMissMolly on 09-23-16
By: Heather Young
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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
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The Magician's Assistant
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Karen Ziemba
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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When a gay Los Angeles magician named Parsifal dies suddenly, he leaves behind his heartbroken assistant, Sabine, and a secret past that leads her to Nebraska and a father she never knew he had.
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Patchett Has It
- By Pamela Harvey on 06-10-08
By: Ann Patchett
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Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
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Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
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Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
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When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."
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filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
What listeners say about All Things Cease to Appear
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Dani F
- 05-29-17
Slow building mystery
Book starts out slow but like a spider weaving its web the families of the story begin weaving you in. About half way in you are totally wrapped in the web of innocence, cruelty, survival and death, and you can not stop, you have to go on to find out what happens to the Hale boys, Katherine and Franny and George. The ending leaves you angry! You want George to suffer and you want JUSTICE for Katherine!
Having gone to Russell Sage College in Troy, NY the references to landmarks, streets in the area is a teasing treat for someone who once knew the area. Hope author gives another book about Franny, the Hale brothers and Willis so we find out what happens to them
H
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- aspenmh
- 06-08-21
really disappointing ending.
the jumping timelines were sometimes hard to keep up with as there were no separation of the current and past. main characters husband (antagonist) was an absolutely reprehensible character. he was a truly horrible person. the ending is very abrupt, there is no real resolution at all.
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- Witchypoo
- 09-27-22
Highly recommend.
Fantastic book, richly drawn characters and plot. Listened non-stop.
Looking for more by this author.
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- Mel
- 06-04-16
Waiting for Something to Solidify
Brundage begins with an enticing and eerie Epigraph:
"THIS is the Hale farm. Here is the old milking barn, the dark opening that says, Find me. This is the weathervane, the woodpile. Here is the house, noisy with stories....Always the farm sings for us, its soldiers and wives....Then there were others--there have been many--who have taken, who have stripped and pillaged....Whatever they could, they took. Leaving just the walls, the bare floors. The beating heart in the cellar."
She goes on:
"We wait. We are patient. We wait for news. We wait to be told. The wind is trying to tell us. The trees shift. It is the end of something; we can sense it. Soon we will know."
Later, "the house sat there grinning," the house seems defiant "dressed in police tape," curtains blow "ghostlike," the husband thinks he sees the form of his recently murdered wife at the door to their bedroom.
The menacing atmosphere, the suggestion of a consciousness in the house, the shadowy history, all evoke feelings of another place in literature where violent happenings have left their psychic tracings -- the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. Like a tease, the titles of chapters support the epigraph, portend something frightening: Takers; The Reality of the Unseen; The Mysteries of Nature; Things Heard and Seen; Behavioral Science; Invasive Procedures; The Shadow of Death...the most telling, I will advise you, is *Behavioral Science.* For all of the tantalizing bites in the direction of phantoms and a possessed house -- it is not to be, leaving a promising mystery abandoned and a well written character study of a psychopath it its place. You might even call this a psychological thriller.
To reveal more of the story or the questionable connections of some of the characters to the farm's past, would spoil the slow *revealing* of the story, however you wish to view it -- as a supernatural tale or a psychological thriller. I'll just warn that the thrills are more like the kiddie roller coaster. But that is not a reason to pass on this book; imagine if you were on that little coaster and noticed the screws were striped bare, pieces of the track missing...it's a matter of perspective. The chills are the real deal as author Brundage unravels George's glossy facade with every page. Often, through his own words, we see the true level of his psychopathy. George describes an artist and his paintings to his class:
"...he didn't paint what he saw, but what he remembered. There's a difference. He believed memory was a lens to the soul. It's not the details that matter -- the veins on a leaf, say, so much as the implied detail, such as the changing light, the wind, the lone peasant in the distance the sense that something else is going on, some deeper possibilitly....”
The book is very well written; the characters feel real and the traits of psychopathy are chillingly accurate; the plot keeps you in a tightening grip. I had two hefty issues with this book. 1- I was okay that the book was a bit of a bait and switch (supernatural for psychological quasi-thriller) because of the skillful writing, but felt the author needed to decide whether there was a supernatural element going on or not, tie in some very loose pieces instead of straddling the genres. There was a sense that the author was not ready to fully commit to her original arc. 2- This had to be the most poorly (worst, faulty, egregious) executed crime investigation ever -- seriously.
I'm left wondering -- though it may be clearer to other readers/listeners -- exactly who is the *we* in the epigraph, what soldiers, what looters? Were spirits, like those from the Overlook, reactivated with the inherent evil of George? Has the beating heart in the cellar added another victim to its rhythmic thumping, AND whose heart is it anyway? I hope you find out.
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24 people found this helpful
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- Tes
- 06-01-21
More Drama than Scares
I was expecting a ghost story about a woman murdered in a haunted house. this is more of a drama revolving around women in failed marriages. there are a few thrilling scenes and the story is interesting but definitely more of a drama than anything else.
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- Elise Gray
- 01-28-24
Incredible story
Watched the movie first then found the book - it’s an amazing well-written story. Hate George Clare!
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- Violet
- 05-12-21
Wow...
This is one of the best books I've ever listened to/read. I wanted to watch the Netflix movie but when I realized it was a book, I came here to listen to it first. I haven't watched the movie yet and am unsure I even want to. The book was so incredibly good, I don't know if I need anyone else's take on it.
It's beautifully written, heartbreaking, yet weirdly hopeful, chilling, spooky, complex, and deep. It's nearly a 15-hour audiobook and I didn't want it to end. I loved every minute of it.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Mike
- 04-26-16
Great read. No surprises but well written
I enjoyed the book. I used Audible to listen to the narrative. My only complaint was the pronunciation of the word "realtor". It was pronounced real-a-tor which is incorrect. Other than that it was excellent
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1 person found this helpful
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- Lisa Magee
- 07-15-21
Great book, disappointing ending
I loved this book until the ending. It was unsatisfying and felt rushed. There were few, if any, consequences for one of the most despicable characters I've read in a while.
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- Anonymous User
- 06-01-21
Well written. Well performed.
The story itself was a little slow for my taste but the writing and performance were excellent. The mystery/suspense was too subtle.
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