Ghosts of the Orphanage
A Story of Mysterious Deaths, a Conspiracy of Silence, and a Search for Justice
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Narrated by:
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Jodie Harris
About this listen
The shocking secret history of twentieth-century orphanages—which for decades hid violence, abuse, and deaths within their walls
For much of the twentieth century, a series of terrible events—abuse, both physical and psychological, and even deaths—took places inside orphanages. The survivors have been trying to tell their astonishing stories for a long time, but disbelief, secrecy, and trauma have kept them from breaking through. For ten years, Christine Kenneally has been on a quest to uncover the harrowing truth.
Centering her story on St. Joseph’s, a Catholic orphanage in Vermont, Kenneally has written a stunning account of a series of crimes and abuses. But her work is not confined to one place. Following clues that take her into the darkened corners of several institutions across the globe, she finds a trail of terrifying stories and a courageous group of survivors who are seeking justice. Ghosts of the Orphanage is an incredible true crime story and a reckoning with a past that has stayed buried for too long, with tragic consequences.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2023 Christine Kenneally (P)2023 PublicAffairsListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Susan Burton's world changed in an instant when her five-year-old son was killed by a van driving down their street. Consumed by grief and without access to professional help, Susan self-medicated, becoming addicted first to cocaine then to crack. As a resident of South Los Angeles, a Black community under siege in the War on Drugs, it was but a matter of time before Susan was arrested. She cycled in and out of prison for over 15 years; never was she offered therapy or treatment for addiction.
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Compelling
- By Jean on 06-18-17
By: Susan Burton, and others
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One Day
- The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America
- By: Gene Weingarten
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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On New Year’s Day 2013, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to, literally, pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That day - chosen completely at random - was Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day. Weingarten spent the next six years proving that there is no such thing. That Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s turned out to be filled with comedy, tragedy, implausible irony, cosmic comeuppances, kindness, cruelty, heroism, cowardice, genius, idiocy, and much more....
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I'm giving this book more credit for its concept
- By J. F. Boyd on 12-24-19
By: Gene Weingarten
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My Name Is Why
- By: Lemn Sissay
- Narrated by: Lemn Sissay, Richard Burnip, Zoe Mills
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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At the age of 17, after a childhood in an fostered family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. He learned that his real name was not Norman. It was Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. Here Sissay recounts his life story. It is a story of neglect and determination. Misfortune and hope. Cruelty and triumph.
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My immediate thoughts after reading My Name is Why
- By Pamela Horitani on 10-09-20
By: Lemn Sissay
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Amazing Grace
- The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation
- By: Jonathan Kozol
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The children we meet through the deepening friendships that evolve between Janathan Kozol and their families defy the stereotypes of urban youth too frequently presented on TV and in newspapers. Tender, generous, and often religiously devout, they speak with painful clarity about the poverty and racial isolation that have wounded but not hardened them. "It's not like being in a jail," says 15-year-old Isabel. "It's more like being hidden."
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The Roots of Change are in Education
- By T. C. Pile on 06-05-20
By: Jonathan Kozol
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Furious Hours
- Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
- By: Casey Cep
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the reverend. Casey Cep brings this story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South.
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Great book, needs a Southern narrator
- By Joseph Wu on 06-06-19
By: Casey Cep
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Our Little Secret
- The True Story of a Teenage Killer and the Silence of a Small New England Town
- By: Kevin Flynn, Rebecca Lavoie
- Narrated by: Aven Shore
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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For 20 years Daniel Paquette's murder in New Hampshire went unsolved. It remained a secret between two high school friends until Eric Windhurst's arrest in 2005. What was revealed was a crime born of adolescent passion between Eric and Daniel's stepdaughter, Melanie - redefining the meaning of loyalty, justice, and revenge.
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A
- By Diana Hart 33 on 04-28-21
By: Kevin Flynn, and others
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I Let Him Go
- By: Denise Fergus
- Narrated by: Siân Polhill-Thomas
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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A truly inspiring and heartbreaking book from the mother of little James Bulger - whose murder by two young boys shocked the world. On 12th February 1993, Denise's life changed forever. As she was running errands at New Strand Shopping Centre, she let go of her two-year-old son's hand to take out her purse. Denise never saw her son again. In this extraordinary and heart-wrenching audiobook comes the unflinching account of that terrible day from James Bulger's mother, Denise.
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I am with heavy heart after reading this
- By Amazon Customer on 01-30-19
By: Denise Fergus
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Invisible Child
- Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City
- By: Andrea Elliott
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 21 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Andrea Elliott follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani, a girl whose imagination is as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn shelter. In this sweeping narrative, Elliott weaves the story of Dasani’s childhood with the history of her ancestors, tracing their passage from slavery to the Great Migration north. As Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis has exploded, deepening the chasm between rich and poor. She must guide her siblings through a world riddled by hunger, violence, racism, drug addiction, and the threat of foster care.
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Narration is completely over the top
- By Heather on 10-14-21
By: Andrea Elliott
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The Ungrateful Refugee
- What Immigrants Never Tell You
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Dina Nayeri
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned-refugee camp. Eventually, she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement.
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Amazing story of resilience and compassion
- By PAH on 09-06-19
By: Dina Nayeri
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The Chief Witness
- Escape from China's Modern-Day Concentration Camps
- By: Sayragul Sauytbay, Alexandra Cavelius
- Narrated by: Xifeng Brooks
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Born in China’s northwestern province, Sayragul Sauytbay trained as a doctor before being appointed a senior civil servant. But her life was upended when the Chinese authorities incarcerated her. Her crime? Being Kazakh, one of China’s ethnic minorities. The northwestern province borders the largest number of foreign nations and is the point in China that is the closest to Europe. In recent years, it has become home to more than 1,200 penal camps - modern-day gulags that are estimated to house three million members of the Kazakh and Uyghur minorities.
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A Must Read!
- By Stephanie on 12-22-21
By: Sayragul Sauytbay, and others
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My Life Among the Serial Killers
- Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderers
- By: Helen Morrison M.D., Harold Goldberg
- Narrated by: Helen Morrison
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
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Dr. Helen Morrison has profiled more than 80 serial killers around the world. What she has learned about them will shatter every assumption you've ever had about the most notorious killers known to man.
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Boring reader,boring writing
- By P. Minor on 02-03-08
By: Helen Morrison M.D., and others
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A Cold-Blooded Business
- Adultery, Murder, and a Killer's Path from the Bible Belt to the Boardroom
- By: Marek Fuchs
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1959, Olathe, Kansas was made famous by the murder of the Clutter family and Truman Capote's ground-breaking book on the crime, In Cold Blood. But fewer know that Olathe achieved notoriety again in 1982, when a member of Olathe's growing Evangelical Christian population, a gentle man named David Harmon, was bludgeoned to death while sleeping - the force of the blows crushing his face beyond recognition.
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GOOD TRUE CRIME STORY
- By The Louligan on 08-17-14
By: Marek Fuchs
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The Girls
- An All-American Town, a Predatory Doctor, and the Untold Story of the Gymnasts Who Brought Him Down
- By: Abigail Pesta
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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The Girls is a profound exploration of trust, ambition, betrayal, and self-discovery. Award-winning journalist Abigail Pesta unveils this deeply reported narrative at a time when the nation is wrestling with the implications of the MeToo movement. How do the women who grew up with Nassar reconcile the monster in the news with the man they once trusted? In The Girls, we learn that their answers to that wrenching question are as rich, insightful, and varied as the human experience itself.
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Don’t waste a credit
- By Timothy McCarthy on 11-12-19
By: Abigail Pesta
What listeners say about Ghosts of the Orphanage
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Brendan
- 09-21-24
These stories must be told
These stories are essential to moving forward for all those affected. We need to change the culture of abuse and the culture of protection for those abusers. We need to change the culture of victim blaming and not believing. Great book. Well written well narrated. Highly recommend.
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- Micah D
- 04-13-23
Unflinching
Somehow the author manages to weave an incredibly complex history into an engaging story -- without stridency, axe-grinding, or poignancy. The author is simultaneously discreet and blunt. The survivors are treated with respect, even as their complicated lives are plainly described. The accused are afforded appropriate linguistics but the author is utterly direct in standing up to individuals and institutions. This book proclaims into being a model of the perseverance, courage, skill, and discipline needed to respond to evil without looking away. I was impressed by how many times my mind tried to take off-ramps as i progressed through the book -- how many comforting rationalizations I seem to have learned. Kenneally tenaciously kept me on track. And she resisted the siren editorial call of a conciliatory ending that might have sold a few more books. This is not a book that frees from responsibility the church that is mudsplashed by history. Absolutely unflinching. And needed.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Sharon Quarles
- 05-24-23
It hurts.
Having a family member raised in and out of an orphanage and have her never coaxed into talking about it makes me so sad. I wish she could have read this book.
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- Mimz
- 01-23-24
Intriguing!
Interesting and compelling history although very disturbing and sad… Prayers to those poor children. May God bless them.
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- pam
- 03-27-23
Different perspectives of a very familiar story
This book was very personal to me as my father and part of his story is mentioned in the book. The author has a very vivid method of writing. The story of the children in these orphanages is one that needed to be told. This is done really well. The author covers a span of almost 100 years of abuse and does it through the lens of all those involved.
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2 people found this helpful
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- The_Fisher_Queen
- 07-07-23
Important Reporting
The writing is great.
Narrator gets screamy/preachy and exaggerated.
Still listen for the story though.
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- Elaine Kelly Bryant
- 08-14-23
Lord Heal your Children!
A story that needs to be told for SO MANY! My Mom spent time in this place, this book explains a lot! Blessings to all brave enough to bring it to light! Healing Hugs to all the victims and those who have helped them along the way!! Romans 12:19
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