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Before You Know Kindness
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 17 hrs
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Publisher's summary
For 10 summers, the Seton family - all three generations - met at their country home in New England to spend a week together playing tennis, badminton, and golf, and savoring gin and tonics on the wraparound porch to celebrate the end of the season. In the 11th summer, everything changed. A hunting rifle with a single cartridge left in the chamber wound up in exactly the wrong hands at exactly the wrong time, and led to a nightmarish accident that put to the test the values that unite the family - and the convictions that just may pull it apart.
Before You Know Kindness is a family saga that is timely in its examination of some of the most important issues of our era, and timeless in its exploration of the strange and unexpected places where we find love. As he did with his earlier masterpiece, Midwives, Chris Bohjalian has written a novel that is rich with unforgettable characters - and absolutely riveting in its intensity.
"Few writers can manipulate a plot with Bohjalian’s grace and power." (The New York Times Book Review)
"Chris Bohjalian’s many fans will be glad to know he’s back on the high wire, expertly balancing topical issues with the more timeless concerns of the human heart. His well-drawn, sympathetic characters deepen and intensify the novel’s gripping plot rather than simply serving it. Before You Know Kindness is smart, first-rate storytelling." (Richard Russo, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls)
"Once again, Chris Bohjalian dares to tackle the complexities - and complacencies - of modern society at its most vulnerable spot, where the personal clashes with the political, where the private is forced to go public. And once again, he forges a drama that will keep his readers on the edge of their seats...perhaps their conscience as well." (Julia Glass, winner of the National Book Award for Three Junes)
"Chris Bohjalian’s magnificent new novel, Before You Know Kindness, is the best work of fiction I’ve read about an American family since Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. It is one of the funniest, best-written, most compassionate, most engaging, and flat-out most enjoyable novels I’ve ever read." (Howard Frank Mosher, winner of the New England Book Award for A Stranger in the Kingdom)
"Elegant, refined...a triumph." (Booklist starred review)
Also available as a Random House audiobook, a large print edition, and an ebook.
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Critic reviews
New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age, Winner
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Macy Lockhart’s life shattered in a moment with the news that her husband, Finn – serving in the military overseas – has been killed in the line of duty. Their ardent marriage is over, leaving Macy alone, empty, directionless. But while she tries to sustain herself with memories of Finn, who made her and their small Texas ranch the center of his life, it is wealthy Wyatt Clark who slowly brings joy back into her life - until the day that Finn, miraculously spared from death, returns home to claim his bride….
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Excellent!
- By Lady M on 05-01-13
By: Julia London
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One True Thing
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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A young woman sits in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her dying mother. She didn't do it, but she thinks she knows who did. In the last months of her life, Ellen Gulden's mother revealed startling secrets that challenged everything Ellen believed about her family. Now, in jail, Ellen believes those secrets will tell her who had the courage to end her mother's suffering.
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Quindlen's writing skills shine in One True Thing.
- By Bonny on 08-26-13
By: Anna Quindlen
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Suddenly
- By: Barbara Delinsky
- Narrated by: Carol Monda
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In the idyllic small town of Tucker, Vermont, life flows at a rhythmic pace for pediatrician Paige Pfeiffer. But when Mara O'Neill, her best friend and medical partner, inexplicably kills herself, Paige's comfortable world is suddenly shattered. Temporarily caring for Mara's newly adopted baby daughter while she comes to grips with her grief, Paige clings to the hope that, in time, her orderly life will return.
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Parent guide! (not romance)
- By christine on 10-10-11
By: Barbara Delinsky
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Saints for All Occasions
- A Novel
- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Story
Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
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The narration ruined it
- By Janis Reynolds on 06-12-17
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The Rest of Her Life
- By: Laura Moriarty
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Leigh is the mother of high-achieving, popular high school senior Kara. Their relationship is already strained for reasons Leigh does not fully understand when, in a moment of carelessness, Kara makes a mistake that ends in tragedy, the effects of which not only divide Leigh's family, but polarize the entire community.
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Obnoxious musical interludes ruin the story
- By Joan on 12-25-11
By: Laura Moriarty
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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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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 Visiting Privilege
- New and Collected Stories
- By: Joy Williams
- Narrated by: Richard Powers, Emily Woo Zeller, Elisabeth Rodgers, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: 33 stories drawn from three much-lauded collections and another 13 appearing here for the first time in book form.
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I sure tried.
- By A.C. CALLOWAY on 01-28-24
By: Joy Williams
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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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A Thousand Acres
- By: Jane Smiley
- Narrated by: C. J. Critt
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Wilde Lake
- A Novel
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney, Nicole Poole
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Luisa "Lu" Brant is the newly elected - and first female - state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It's not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard County doesn't see many homicides.
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In a word saccharine and boring
- By Rena on 05-12-16
By: Laura Lippman
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After the Parade
- By: Lori Ostlund
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
By: Lori Ostlund
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Disappointed.
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decent listen
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From the New York Times best-selling author of The Flight Attendant comes a twisting story of love and deceit: An American man vanishes on a rural road in Vietnam, and his girlfriend follows a path that leads her home to the very hospital where they met.
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Wait till COVID19 has passed to read this one!
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When Kristin Chapman agrees to let her husband, Richard, host his brother's bachelor party, she expects a certain amount of debauchery. She brings their young daughter to Manhattan for the evening, leaving her Westchester home to the men and their hired entertainment. What she does not expect is this: bacchanalian drunkenness, her husband sharing a dangerously intimate moment in the guest room, and two women stabbing and killing their Russian bodyguards before driving off into the night.
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Blah, Blah, Blah
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The time is 1981, and Sibyl Danforth has been a dedicated midwife in the rural community of Reddington, Vermont, for 15 years. But one treacherous winter night, in a house isolated by icy roads and failed telephone lines, Sibyl takes desperate measures to save a baby's life. She performs an emergency Caesarean section on its mother, who appears to have died in labor.
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Why Abridged
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What listeners say about Before You Know Kindness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Laurene
- 11-15-04
Give it an hour or two to get rolling...
This book started off real slow, but got better after 1 - 2 hours... I am glad I hung in there, it was pretty good. A little too much detail in some spots, but overall a great "read".
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Wendy
- 03-26-09
before you know kindness
Fabulous. i love Chris Bohjalians' stories, the complexities and the compassion and detail. Wonderfully narrated. You won't be disappointed.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Root
- 12-04-23
Different Perspectives
The story line was was thought out. Characters fleshed out suitably. Details how individuals radicalize views and impose themselves on one another. This author is a gifted story teller. The narrator is good although at times she overacts to a fault.
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Overall
- Pamela Harvey
- 10-30-04
Awesome Read
This is Chris Bohjalian as his best. It's like "Midwives" and "The Law of Similars" and "Buffalo Soldier" were just a warmup. He explores numerous aspects of an issue as seen through the characters and their history, their attitudes and their (often conflicting) situations. Such writing could easily become an intellectual exercise but Bohjalian's perceptive insights and dedicated, consistent character development makes this book a joy to read. I couldn't put it down.
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11 people found this helpful
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- JeninOhio
- 01-04-08
Surprisingly Mediocre
Mediocre is probably being kind... And let me say right off that I am a Chris Bohjalian fan. Midwives was a fabulous read. I enjoyed The Buffalo Soldier and The Double Bind. I was looking forward to "Before you know..." However I felt the prose was basic, the plot was linear with nothing surprising or out of the ordinary. This could easily have been told as a short story. He overused too many phrases, many times in the same paragraph. It was difficult to finish and I do not recommend it. Steer yourself to the other Bohjalian joys of reading and don't waste time with this one.
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4 people found this helpful
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- kathleen
- 10-26-16
A good read, but Bohjalian has done better.
This book was so long and the beginning almost made me give up but continued.
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- Martha Humphreys
- 04-28-14
When Accident Meets Establishment
Hardly a page turner, rather an interesting character study of a privileged segment of our culture when a near-miss challenges comfortable assumptions and the integrity of the characters who are committed to various degrees of politically correct fanaticism.
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- Shelly
- 10-01-13
Interesting character study
If you could sum up Before You Know Kindness in three words, what would they be?
Insightful, encouraging and at times, maddening
What did you like best about this story?
The attention to detail in explaining events that shape the character's response to events.
What about Susan Denaker’s performance did you like?
She did a great job of making the many characters come to life through her fluctuation in her voice.
Who was the most memorable character of Before You Know Kindness and why?
Charlotte because she essentially grew up in the span of a few months.
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- DianaZeus
- 03-12-17
Any diet is tough
Characters had character. A Simple story with a lot of statements. I liked the very notable ending, because it left me smiling. Very good coming of age story for all ages.
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Overall
- Daved Baker
- 01-12-06
Engrossing!
This is a very rewarding novel that tackles the issues of gun control and animal rights so deftly and from so many points of view that you'll lose yourself in the inner workings of the characters and the plot, and not realize till you've finished reading it what the book is really about. The author leads you on a detailed journey through each characters inner and outer desires and motivations, interweaving story lines and perspectives seamlessly. If you liked "Behind the Scenes at the Museum" (Kate Atkinson) and "On Beauty" (Zadie Smith) you'll probably like this too.
Much like "The Kite Runner" (Khaled Hosseini) and "A Changed Man" (Francine Proset) there is also the theme of it never being to late to find redemtion, no matter the sins (real or imagined) commited.
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5 people found this helpful