And Sons
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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George Newbern
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By:
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David Gilbert
About this listen
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • The New Yorker • Esquire • The Austin Chronicle • Kansas City Star • The Guardian (UK) • BookPage • Flavorwire • Bookish
“[A] big, brilliant novel.”—The New York Times Book Review
Who is A. N. Dyer? & Sons is a literary masterwork for readers of The Art of Fielding, The Emperor’s Children, and Wonder Boys—the panoramic, deeply affecting story of an iconic novelist, two interconnected families, and the heartbreaking truths that fiction can hide.
The funeral of Charles Henry Topping on Manhattan’s Upper East Side would have been a minor affair (his two-hundred-word obit in The New York Times notwithstanding) but for the presence of one particular mourner: the notoriously reclusive author A. N. Dyer, whose novel Ampersand stands as a classic of American teenage angst. But as Andrew Newbold Dyer delivers the eulogy for his oldest friend, he suffers a breakdown over the life he’s led and the people he’s hurt and the novel that will forever endure as his legacy. He must gather his three sons for the first time in many years—before it’s too late.
So begins a wild, transformative, heartbreaking week, as witnessed by Philip Topping, who, like his late father, finds himself caught up in the swirl of the Dyer family. First there’s son Richard, a struggling screenwriter and father, returning from self-imposed exile in California. In the middle lingers Jamie, settled in Brooklyn after his twenty-year mission of making documentaries about human suffering. And last is Andy, the half brother whose mysterious birth tore the Dyers apart seventeen years ago, now in New York on spring break, determined to lose his virginity before returning to the prestigious New England boarding school that inspired Ampersand. But only when the real purpose of this reunion comes to light do these sons realize just how much is at stake, not only for their father but for themselves and three generations of their family.
In this daring feat of fiction, David Gilbert establishes himself as one of our most original, entertaining, and insightful authors. & Sons is that rarest of treasures: a startlingly imaginative novel about families and how they define us, and the choices we make when faced with our own mortality.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE
“Big, brilliant, and terrifically funny.”—Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins
“Extraordinary.”—Time
“Smart and savage . . . Seductive and ripe with both comedy and heartbreak, [& Sons] made me reconsider my stance on . . . the term ‘instant classic.’”—NPR
“A big, ambitious book about fathers and sons, Oedipal envy and sibling rivalry, and the dynamics between art and life . . . [& Sons] does a wonderful job of conjuring up its characters’ memories . . . in layered, almost Proustian detail.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“[A] smart, engrossing saga . . . Perfect for fans of Jonathan Franzen or Claire Messud.”—Entertainment Weekly
“This great big novel is . . . infused with warmth and wisdom about what it means to be a family.”—The Boston Globe
“Audacious . . . [one of the year’s] most dazzlingly smart, fully realized works of fiction.”—The Washington Post
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Critic reviews
"[A] big, rich book... With wit and heart, Gilbert illuminates the complicated ways that fathers and sons misunderstand, disappoint, and love one another and how their behavior affects the women in their lives." (Real Simple)
"A marvel of uproarious and devastating missteps and reversals charged with lightning dialogue, Gilbert’s delectably mordant and incisive tragicomedy of fathers, sons, and brothers, privilege and betrayal, celebrity and obscurity, ingeniously and judiciously maps the interface between truth and fiction, life and art.” (Booklist)
“In terms of sheer reading pleasure, my favorite book this year was & Sons, David Gilbert’s big, intelligent, richly textured novel about fathers, sons, friendship, and legacies. . . . From [A. N.] Dyer’s slacker sons to a J. Crew-wearing young seductress, every member of Gilbert’s cast of characters is perfectly drawn.” (Ruth Franklin, The New Yorker)
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What a rollicking ride!
- By Pamela Harvey on 08-13-11
By: Matthew Norman
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The Finishing School
- A Novel
- By: Joanna Goodman
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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One spring night in 1998, the beautiful Cressida Strauss plunges from a fourth-floor balcony at the Lycée Internationale Suisse with catastrophic consequences. Loath to draw negative publicity to the school, a bastion of European wealth and glamour, officials quickly dismiss the incident as an accident, but questions remain. Was it a suicide attempt? Or was Cressida pushed? It was no secret that she had a selfish streak and had earned as many enemies as allies in her tenure at the school.
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this book was just ok
- By Josh Fields on 02-26-20
By: Joanna Goodman
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Bright Lights, Big City
- By: Jay McInerney
- Narrated by: Daniel Passer
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The tragicomedy of a young man in New York City, a writer, never named, who works as a fact-checker for a prestigious magazine. He struggles with the reality of his mother's death, alienation, and the seductive pull of drugs and a vibrant nightlife.
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Curiously, mundanely real
- By Amber on 01-07-12
By: Jay McInerney
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Lifted by the Great Nothing
- By: Karim Dimechkie
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Max doesn't remember his mother, who was murdered by burglars before they emigrated from Beirut to New Jersey. He lives with his father, Rasheed, who is enamored of his concept of American culture - baseball and barbeques - and tries to shed his Lebanese heritage completely.
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Excellent
- By Cheyenne on 06-13-15
By: Karim Dimechkie
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Nearly Normal
- Surviving the Wilderness, My Family and Myself
- By: Cea Sunrise Person
- Narrated by: Cea Sunrise Person
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In her best-selling memoir North of Normal, Cea wrote with grace about her unconventional childhood - her early years living in a tipi in Alberta with her pot-smoking, free-loving counterculture family. But her struggles do not end when she leaves her family at the age of 13 to become a model. Honest and daring, Nearly Normal reveals the many ways that Cea's unconventional childhood continues to reverberate through the years.
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This one is just not for me
- By Pamela Plimpton on 03-15-19
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The Wangs vs. the World
- By: Jade Chang
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Charles Wang is mad at America. A brash, lovable immigrant businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, he's just been ruined by the financial crisis. Now all Charles wants is to get his kids safely stowed away so that he can go to China and attempt to reclaim his family's ancestral lands - and his pride. Outrageously funny and full of charm, The Wangs vs. the World is an entirely fresh look at what it means to belong in America - and how going from glorious riches to (still name-brand) rags brings one family together in a way money never could.
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Spectacular
- By Barbara on 10-11-16
By: Jade Chang
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Loving Day
- By: Mat Johnson
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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On his first night in his new home, Warren spies two figures in the grass outside; when he screws up the nerve to confront them, they disappear. The next day he encounters ghosts of a different kind: In the face of the teenage girl he meets at a comics convention, he sees the mingled features of his white father and his black mother, both now dead. The girl is his daughter, and she thinks she's white.
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Teen lit with heavy erotic imagery
- By Itinerant T on 08-26-15
By: Mat Johnson
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God-Shaped Hole
- A Novel
- By: Tiffanie DeBartolo
- Narrated by: Rachael Warren
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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When Beatrice Trixie Jordan replies to a personal ad, she meets Jacob Grace, a charming, effervescent 30-something free-spirit writer passionately seeking life. He possesses his own turns of phrase and ways of thinking and feeling that dissonantly harmonize with Trixie's off-center vision. As they rollercoaster through the joys and furies of their wrenching romance, they try to come to terms with the hurt brought about by both of their distant fathers who, in different ways, forsook them.
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To see a fortune teller or not to see one...
- By Renee on 08-08-18
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Shadow Show
- All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury
- By: Sam Weller - editor, Mort Castle - editor
- Narrated by: George Takei, Edward Herrmann, Kate Mulgrew, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Ray Bradbury - peerless storyteller, poet of the impossible, and one of America's most beloved authors - is a literary giant whose remarkable career spanned seven decades. Now 26 of today's most diverse and celebrated authors offer new short works in honor of the master; stories of heart, intelligence, and dark wonder from a remarkable range of creative artists.
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THE MAN WHO FORGOT RAY BRADBURY
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 05-27-17
By: Sam Weller - editor, and others
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I'll See You in Paris
- A Novel
- By: Michelle Gable
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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After losing her fiancé in the Vietnam War, nineteen-year-old Laurel Haley takes a job in England, hoping the distance will mend her shattered heart. Laurel expects the pain might lessen but does not foresee the beguiling man she meets or that they'll go to Paris, where the city's magic will take over and alter everything Laurel believes about love.
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Curious and Aggravated
- By Violet Trout on 04-13-16
By: Michelle Gable
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Falling Together
- A Novel
- By: Marisa de los Santos
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s been six years since Pen Calloway watched her best friends walk out of her life. And through the birth of her daughter, the death of her father, and the vicissitudes of single motherhood, she has never stopped missing them. Pen, Cat, and Will met on their first day of college and formed what seemed like a magical and lifelong bond, only to see their friendship break apart amid the realities of adulthood. When, after years of silence, Cat - the bewitching, charismatic center of their group - e-mails Pen and Will with an urgent request to meet at their college reunion, they can’t refuse.
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Narrator's breathy voice a turn off
- By Amy on 10-16-11
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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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Love Walked In
- By: Marisa de los Santos
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning poet Marisa de los Santos crafts an irresistibly touching debut novel. Love Walked In is a contemporary tale, steeped in nostalgic, cinematic charm, of love in all its forms. Unapologetically idealistic about love, Cornelia Brown appears to catch the break of a lifetime when the dashing Martin Grace, her own personal Cary Grant, comes strolling into her life. But it is Martin's connection to 11-year-old Clare Hobbes that touches Cornelia's heart in ways she never imagined.
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Dreadful audio quality
- By Marenghi on 09-16-11
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The Road Home
- By: Ford Michael Thomas Ford
- Narrated by: Blake Somerset
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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When a car accident leaves photographer Burke Crenshaw in need of temporary full-time care, he finds himself back in the one place no forty-year-old chooses to be--his childhood bedroom. There, in the Vermont home where he grew up, Burke begins the long process of recuperation, and watches as his widowed father finds happiness in a new relationship that's a constant reminder of everything Burke wants and lacks. Exploring local history, Burke discovers an intriguing series of letters from a Civil War soldier to his fianc.
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No need to check your scepticism at the door!
- By Orlando on 08-23-13
What listeners say about And Sons
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jill J
- 11-25-21
Good prose, decent story
Narrator seemed southern in cadence and that lilt was a distraction at first for a novel set in NYC. No character was likeable in this novel (except for the mothers, curiously)...but what the author does well is show one or two shiny moments of each man's reachable humanness. I liked that, and we deserve that as readers.
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- Dorothy
- 08-19-13
I finally finished
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
I would say that it was difficult to finish this book. By the time it was over I had no interest in the characters or their lives. I agree that there are passages of brilliant writing -but for the most part it was hard for me to stay engaged in the story.
Do you think And Sons needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
No -
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3 people found this helpful
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- Kelly
- 07-26-13
Instant classic. Really.
"When someone uses the term "instant classic," I typically want to grab him and ask, "So this is, what, like the new Great Expectations? You sure about that?" But David Gilbert's novel & Sons, seductive and ripe with both comedy and heartbreak, made me reconsider my stance on such a label. & Sons feels deeply familiar, as though it existed for decades and I was just slow to find it." Mary Pols NPR
Flawless narration by George Newbern.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Penny
- 08-23-13
A great book - but I can't like the characters
Any additional comments?
I'm glad I got this book and wanted to finish it. The men - and almost ALL the characters are men - are so unlikeable .... Sometimes reprehensible, sometimes cowardly, sometimes without any kind of moral compass...completely self-centered and self-destructive. That is the point of the story, I guess. I couldn't stop listening but ended as I began, disliking them ALL.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Doug P.
- 08-06-13
Full of brilliant bits and pieces
I came to this novel by way of a brilliant short story by David Gilbert in the "New Yorker" in which every detail is realistic and familiar - until the main character gets drunk and vomits, and the vomit turns out to be something like a baby. The rest of the story is about how he deals with the vomit baby, and it's funny, entertaining and truly heartbreaking. I wanted more of that. The novel "& Sons" is not like that short story. Late in the novel there's a bizarre bit about cloning that seems to attempt a vomit baby type vibe, maybe, but in any case it doesn't succeed. There are other parts where the storytelling doesn't succeed as well. The dullest son is a documentary filmmaker who records the death, day by day, of an old girlfriend as cancer consumes her. Then he digs up her grave and continues to record her decomposition day by day. This over-long story line is probably making a clever point about something - art maybe, or grief - but it fails to be compelling or profound or funny. It's a little upsetting, but that's not why I hated it - it's also unconvincing and boring. I almost abandoned the book. I'm glad I continued listening because the book is full of brilliant and entertaining moments. The writing is so good - full of vivid details and descriptions - that I would often pause the story and try to memorize them. It's worth reading despite its obvious flaws.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Frank Salomon
- 06-16-14
Glittering prose lavished on a thin story
If you're the kind of reader who takes pleasure in virtuoso narration as such, you'll like this. I admired the darting motions of clever prose and the third-person narrator's microscopic lucidity about his kinsmen's varied mental worlds. But the central relationships and conflicts hardly justify so much artfulness.The dominant theme is privileged sons' resentment of each other and of their novelist father, a theme in which petulance and self-pity play smudge over larger and more interesting emotions. A glittering structure with a weak core.
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- Dana B. Miller
- 09-01-13
i love books like this
Would you listen to And Sons again? Why?
yes, absolutely. i'm sure i missed some gem of a sentence and even if i didn't, these sentences are worth listening to again.
What did you like best about this story?
the prose is gorgeous.
What about George Newbern’s performance did you like?
he has a great tone, generationally, his voice fit the the narrator and also spanned the decades easily, and his acting was spot on, not overdone.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
about fathers and sons and the tapestry that such relationships weave, however frayed.
Any additional comments?
the one sort of super-natural-ish plot point was a little jarring but the writing is so beautiful and assured, it doesn't end up mattering. exceptional book.
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- timothy
- 03-24-17
...too many...
...similar sounding names (Andy, Andrew, A.N., Richard, Phillip, Charlie, Jamie) but a decent storyline...might help to read 'Ampersand' first (ha! ;-))
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- Tom Coppler
- 08-19-13
Pass on this one
Lots of words no story, Glibert tries too hard, painful. Could not even bother to finish listening to this one and I finished Atlas Shrugged.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Mary
- 01-31-14
Tediously Confusing
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
I am not sure. This may be a man's book,but in spite of this the story loses any vim and vigor it claimed to have at the beginning! I should have returned it.
What could David Gilbert have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Tell a better story. I found this irritatingly confusing , tedious and last but not least poorly crafted.
Did the narration match the pace of the story?
I do not think it would matter.
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