Blame
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Hillary Huber
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By:
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Michelle Huneven
About this listen
In fact, two Jehovah's Witnesses, a mother and daughter, are dead, run over in Patsy's driveway, and Patsy will spend the rest of her life trying to atone. She goes to prison, gets sober, and upon her release finds a new community (and a husband) in AA. She resists temptations, strives for goodness, and becomes a selfless teacher, friend, and wife.
Then, decades later, another unimaginable piece of information turns up. For the reader, it is an electrifying moment; a joyous, fall-off-the-couch-with-surprise moment. For Patsy, it is more complicated. Blame must be reapportioned, her life reassessed.
Blame is a spellbinding novel of guilt and love, family and shame, sobriety and the lack of it, and the moral ambiguities that ensnare us all.
©2009 Michelle Huneven (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Editorial reviews
Blame by Michelle Huneven is risky, prickly, and astonishingly lovely. Patsy's redemption is anchored by being good, not staying clean, even though she never relapses. Huneven approaches addiction as a messy, elemental impulse that crushes some with liquor and pills, while collapsing others, like Cal Sharp Patsy's three-decades-older husband, a pillar of AA with the compulsion to save as many lost souls as can be crammed into their ranch home.
Hillary Huber narrates Blame and her hypnotic storyteller's voice coaxes a rich, rhythmic word flow out of Huneven's droll language. There is empathy as well as a sneaky, subversive acidity to Huber's logic-driven Patsy; a deliberate, academic pacing. Patsy's rakish ex-boyfriend, Brice, is also humanized by Huber, who registers Brice's grief over losing his lover, Gilles, by curdling his surfer drawl with a gritty skim of impatience. Blame is a masterpiece, and when Huber, as Patsy, observes, "Guilt was like the check on a table. Somebody had to pick it up", it clicks that yes, finally, this is the meaning of recovery. Nita Rao
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When Katie Garrett gets the news that she’s received an inheritance from the grandmother she hardly knew, it couldn’t have come at a better time. She flees Boston and travels to rural Texas. There, she’s greeted by her distant cousin Scarlett. Friendly and flamboyant, Scarlett couldn’t be more different from sensible Katie. And as they begin the task of sorting through their grandmother’s possessions, they discover letters and photographs that uncover the hidden truths about their shared history, and the long-forgotten tragedy of the New London school explosion of 1937 that binds them.
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a little odd to me
- By G-Mom on 11-09-24
By: Sofia Grant
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Georgia Bottoms
- A Novel
- By: Mark Childress
- Narrated by: Debra Monk
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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A best-selling author of books for adults and children, Mark Childress pens his most outrageous work yet with Georgia Bottoms. The titular heroine is the epitome of the church-going Southern belle, except for one teeny-tiny aspect of her life. Georgia’s family inheritance has long since evaporated, and to maintain her genteel lifestyle, Miss Bottoms has taken six affluent lovers—the fly in the ointment being that one is a married preacher who’s about to reveal their infidelity to the whole congregation.
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Fun Listen
- By Sue on 04-08-11
By: Mark Childress
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The Portable Veblen
- By: Elizabeth Mckenzie
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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An exuberant, one-of-a-kind novel about love and family, war and nature, new money and old values by a brilliant New Yorker contributor. The Portable Veblen is a dazzlingly original novel that's as big-hearted as it is laugh-out-loud funny. Set in and around Palo Alto amid the culture clash of new money and old (antiestablishment) values, and with the specter of our current wars looming across its words, The Portable Veblen is an unforgettable look at the way we live now.
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Not what it was cracked up to be
- By Linda on 02-03-16
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Tryin' To Sleep In the Bed You Made
- By: Virginia DeBerry, Donna Grant
- Narrated by: Fran L. Washington
- Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Gayle was the beauty who believed that a man could make her life complete. Patricia was the intellectual who thought that rising to the top of her career would make her happy. And then there is Marcus Carter, who has been linked to both Gayle and Pat since the tragedy that occurred when they were all children. Can either one save him from himself? Can friends survive a love that comes between them? Each of them gets what she wants, but no one counts on the price they have to pay.
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Better with each chapter!
- By Cyn B. on 02-09-16
By: Virginia DeBerry, and others
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Texas Rich
- By: Fern Michaels
- Narrated by: Erin Yuen
- Length: 25 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Young Billie Ames naively fell for the exciting pilot Moss Coleman at the Philadelphia Navy Yard during World War II. Within a few months, she was pregnant, married, and traveling across the country to Austin...to the 250,000-acre spread known as Sunbridge and into the tantalizing world of the Texas rich. In a vast land dominated by the industrious Colemans, Billie fights to maintain control of her life and her marriage.
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Awful Southern Accent
- By Tina Peters on 03-24-16
By: Fern Michaels
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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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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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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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Her Mother’s Hope
- By: Francine Rivers
- Narrated by: Stina Nielsen
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Internationally best-selling author Francine Rivers—winner of a Christy Award and the ECPA Gold Medallion—crafts a riveting tale of mother/daughter bonds stretching across decades. Strong-willed Marta leaves Switzerland early in the 20th century and settles in California. Though Marta loves her eldest daughter Hildie, they often clash as they attempt to find their places in the world.
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Another Awesome Read From Francine
- By Meaghan Bynum on 04-12-10
By: Francine Rivers
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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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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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Her Sister's Shoes
- By: Ashley Farley
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Samantha Sweeney has always been the glue that holds her family together, their go-to girl for love and support. When an ATV accident leaves her teenage son in a wheelchair, she loses her carefully constructed self-control. In the after-gloom of her dreaded 50th birthday and the discovery of her husband's infidelity, Jackie realizes she must reconnect with her former self to find the happiness she needs to move forward.
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Heartwarming family issues.
- By Schmanet on 07-25-16
By: Ashley Farley
What listeners say about Blame
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- annemarie
- 09-13-13
Enjoyable Listen
What made the experience of listening to Blame the most enjoyable?
As soon as I finished this book, I was recommending it my friends. I listened to the majority of the book while travelling for work. The performance made the characters seem very real and they were great company on my travels. By the end Patsy seemed like an old friend that I had known for years, supporting her through her trials and successes. The story was good, catching my interest quickly and the characters well developed.
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- Anonymous User
- 09-17-12
Blackout drinking
If you ever drank so much you had to ask your friends and family how much fun you had because you honestly don't remember, then this story will cause a queasy feeling in your gut. Forget running out to look at your car - if you even remember where you left it, hoping it's in the garage! - to see if there are any new dents on it, you woke up in the drunk tank. Again. This is the picture of untreated alcoholism and what its consequences might be. It's also a great little slice of life in upper-crust Los Angeles in the early to mid 1980s. The author is spot on in terms of prison life, and in terms of AA culture. The story has a very real feel to it, a sense of having been there, known the players, been part of it. You may not enjoy this story... IF you are an untreated alcoholic. It will be uncomfortable for you.
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- David
- 04-22-15
Worst ending
Any additional comments?
Normally, I don't write reviews, but am making an exception in this case to say that after investing many an hour in this book, but ending is a terrible disappointment. The main character, Patsy, behaves like a doormat, though the author sets the reader up to expect more and better. What a let down.
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Overall
- Rex
- 11-01-09
Amazing character study!
I found this novel by Michelle Huneven, to be an amazing character study. Her (the protagonist Patsy) fall and eventual redemption following a horrible accident done in an alcoholic blackout was believable and compelling. So often a person is judged by their worst act but in Patsy's case, her friends, family, and victims family are the first to forgive. Long before she is able to forgive herself. Some of the most telling parts in this novel are scenes between Patsy and her victims husband. I found the AA program sections and scenes with her therapist both compelling and informative. The reader, Hillary Huber, was one of the best readers I have heard in along time. All in all, an amazing reading/listening experience!
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Sarah
- 06-13-11
Excellent read
Though slow in several parts of the book, the overall story is excellent. It certainly helps the reader realize how quickly life can change and how scary blackout drinking can become. I liked it a lot and recommend it, especially to those readers who are in or seeking recovery.
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- Minneapolis listener
- 07-10-22
An immersing read
This California story is extremely well narrated by Hillary Huber, who gives the main character just the right hoarse quality.
All the characters are interesting, and some are lovable, unfortunately not so Patsy who does her prison time irritably but then doesn’t seem to understand she is delivered into clover to a certain extent. She’s better but not exactly aware.
From there situations fly fast: she is dissatisfied, asks too little and too much.
Highly readable, but very California.
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Overall
- Pamela Harvey
- 08-30-09
narrative whiplash
This book has an excellent premise, but it is not even slightly evident that the protagonist "spends the rest of her life trying to atone". Perhaps the writer had some sort of internal angst in mind when she created this character and her situation, but actually from the reader's point of view, this person suffers very little for her misdeeds, and any spiritual growth experienced by "Patsy", does not come across. After her minimum sentence she goes blithely back into her previous life, where her employer(s) don't care the slightest bit about a felony in her resume, and proceeds to engage in a life of privilege, parties and serial monogamy. The AA stuff is strictly background noise, and the handily-acquired AA husband described in the publisher's summary is already discarded by the end of the book.
I was seriously looking forward to this read, but I only found too many shallow characters whose behaviors lack consequence, too much dialogue - the lazy way to tell a story - and just too many names to remember. If my attention drifted the slightest bit, I was all of a sudden in the midst of an entirely new cast!
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26 people found this helpful
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- Rochelle Christopher
- 08-20-12
Wonderful Beach Read; couldn't put it down
What did you love best about Blame?
I loved the fact that you got to care about the main character. Having been the wife of a recovering alcoholic, I could relate and this story was perfect. I couldn't wait to continue to listen so I could find out what happened to her and to her family.
Who was your favorite character and why?
My favorite was the main character's gay boyfriend. His name escapes me at the moment but he was the one I most wanted to know a little better. I wanted him for MY friend.
Have you listened to any of Hillary Huber’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No, I have not.
If you could take any character from Blame out to dinner, who would it be and why?
Probably the husband of the Jehovah;s Witness woman that was killed. His capacity for forgiveness is something that I could learn a lot from.
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- Ted
- 08-23-12
A terrible book
Would you try another book from Michelle Huneven and/or Hillary Huber?
No I would not buy another book by this author. Please consider another book. This is an incredibly boring and meandering story.
Any additional comments?
I want my 10 hrs back. I was captive on a 12 hr road trip and kept expecting something interesting to happen but it didn't. My wife and I just kept looking at each other everytime the story meanederd to a new boring subject.
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Overall
- Connie
- 10-21-10
Would not recommend for Audible
This book does not lend itself well for the Audible Book user. It runs with too many characters and flows poorly. Only order if you can listen to the book from beginning to end without breaks.
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1 person found this helpful