
Holler, Child
Stories
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By:
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LaToya Watkins
About this listen
Longlisted for the National Book Award
Winner of the Reading the West Book Award in Fiction
An extraordinary short story collection about community, home, betrayal, and forgiveness—from a writer whose “spellbinding, buoyant”* storytelling will break your heart as it tends to the wounds.
*Texas Monthly
In Holler, Child’s eleven brilliant stories, LaToya Watkins presses at the bruises of guilt, love, and circumstance. Each story introduces us to a character irrevocably shaped by place and reaching toward something—hope, reconciliation, freedom.
In “Cutting Horse,” the appearance of a horse in a man’s suburban backyard places a former horse breeder in trouble with the police. In “Holler, Child,” a mother is forced into an impossible position when her son gets in a kind of trouble she knows too well from the other side. And “Time After” shows us the unshakable bonds of family as a sister journeys to find her estranged brother—the one who saved her many times over.
Throughout Holler, Child, we see love lost and gained, and grief turned to hope. This collection peers deeply into lives of women and men experiencing intimate and magnificent reckonings—exploring how race, power, and inequality map on the individual, and demonstrating the mythic proportions of everyday life.
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Critic reviews
A New York Times Editors’ Choice
One of Library Journal’s Best Books of the Year
Featured in San Antionio Current's ''10 Notable 2023 Books From Texas Authors"
One of The Millions’ Most Anticipated Titles of 2023
One of The Texas Observer's 2023 Must-Read Lone Star Books
Included in Ebony's "August Required Reading"
One of Bookish's "30 Summer Books to Have on Your Radar"
Included in Essence's "15 New Books We Can't Wait to Read This Summer"
Included in Lone Star Literary Life's "August 2023 Texas Books Preview"
Featured in LitHub's list of "New Books Out Today"
A Kirkus Most Anticipated Book of the Fall
“The collection asks: Whom can we protect and at what cost? Atmospheric and cinematic, Holler, Child is well worth your time.” —The New York Times Book Review
“A poignant collection about the loves, losses, and struggles of a Black community in West Texas . . . Watkins plumbs the depths of our emotions with compassion and nuance, offering a complex understanding of the human condition.” —TIME, “The 100 Must-Read Books of the Year”
“Above all, Holler, Child is an engrossing showcase of ordinary people struggling to get by, carefully and compactly drawn… Watkins’s spare, evocative prose turns painful subject matter into thoughtful, transcendent art… an unforgettable collection.” —The Washington Post
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- By: Kendra Broekhuis
- Narrated by: Anna Caputo
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Leona Warlon heads across the city to meet her husband, David, for a rare dinner out, she hopes they can share a moment of relief after their year of loss. But Leona quickly realizes this is no ordinary date night. She hasn’t just stepped into an upscale ristorante; she’s stepped into a different version of her life. One in which her marriage is no longer tender, in which her days are pressured by her powerful in-laws, and in which her precious baby girl lived.
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Such a great book!!
- By Mykayla Johnson on 10-10-24
By: Kendra Broekhuis
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The Puttermesser Papers
- A Novel
- By: Cynthia Ozick
- Narrated by: Natasha Lyonne
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Yearning for a life of the mind, Ruth Puttermesser finds herself mired in the lowest circles of city bureaucracy. Her love life hopeless, her fantasies more influential than wan reality, she nevertheless turns out to be the best mayor New York City has ever elected. Soon enough, though, paradise gained becomes paradise lost, and—even for a wistful visionary like Puttermesser—the problem of disappointment remains unresolved.
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Disjointed, but amusing
- By FD on 06-05-24
By: Cynthia Ozick
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Whoever You Are, Honey
- A Novel
- By: Olivia Gatwood
- Narrated by: Olivia Gatwood
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On the Santa Cruz, California, waterfront, every house is a flawless glass monolith. Except for one. In a dilapidated bungalow, Mitty and her elderly roommate, Bethel, are the oddball pair who represent the last vestiges of a free-spirited town taken over by the tech elite. But their lives are about to be forever changed when a new couple, Sebastian and Lena, move in next door. Sebastian is a renowned tech founder and Lena is his girlfriend. But Lena has secrets; she feels uneasy about her oddly spotty memory and is growing increasingly wary of the way Sebastian controls their relationship.
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Interesting…..but kept me listening
- By Kate on 04-10-25
By: Olivia Gatwood
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Shiner
- A Novel
- By: Amy Jo Burns
- Narrated by: Catherine Taber
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
An hour from the closest West Virginia mining town, 15-year-old Wren Bird lives in a cloistered mountain cabin with her parents. Every Sunday, Wren's father delivers winding sermons in an abandoned gas station. But over the course of one summer, a miracle performed by Wren's father quickly turns to tragedy. As the order of her world begins to shatter, Wren must uncover the truth of her father's mysterious legend and her mother's harrowing history and complex bond with her best friend.
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Victim complexes extraordinaire
- By Dora on 08-21-20
By: Amy Jo Burns
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The Friday Night Club
- A Novel of Artist Hilma af Klint and Her Creative Circle
- By: Sofia Lundberg, Alyson Richman, M.J. Rose
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert, Pete Cross, Alyson Richman
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Early 1900s: The world belongs to men, and the art world in Stockholm, Sweden, is no different, until Hilma af Klint brings together a mysterious group of female painters and writers—Anna, Cornelia, Sigrid, and Mathilda—to form their own emotional and artistic support system. The members of the Friday Night Club find themselves thrust into uncharted territory when Hilma and her best friend, Anna, begin dabbling in the occult, believing that through séances they can channel unseen spirits to help them achieve their potential as artists.
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The most important book I’ve read in many years
- By Dane R Rowley on 09-30-23
By: Sofia Lundberg, and others
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Tremor
- A Novel
- By: Teju Cole
- Narrated by: Atta Otigba, Yetide Badaki
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A weekend spent antiquing is shadowed by the colonial atrocities that occurred on that land. A walk at dusk is interrupted by casual racism. A loving marriage is riven by mysterious tensions. And a remarkable cascade of voices speaks out from a pulsing metropolis. We’re invited to experience these events and others through the eyes and ears of Tunde, a West African man working as a teacher of photography on a renowned New England campus.
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Fractured narrative line but little gained from splicing of stories
- By Kirsten Scheid on 03-14-24
By: Teju Cole
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The Great White Bard
- How to Love Shakespeare While Talking About Race
- By: Farah Karim-Cooper
- Narrated by: Farah Karim-Cooper, Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Professor Farah Karim-Cooper has dedicated her career to the Bard, which is why she wants to take the playwright down from his pedestal to unveil a Shakespeare for the twenty-first century. If we persist in reading Shakespeare as representative of only one group, as the very pinnacle of the white Western canon, then he will truly be in peril.
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So enlightening!
- By eric lewis on 02-12-24
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Real Life
- A Novel
- By: Brandon Taylor
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends—some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness.
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Not My Gay Real Life
- By Haynes on 02-29-20
By: Brandon Taylor
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After the Funeral and Other Stories
- By: Tessa Hadley
- Narrated by: Abigail Thaw
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A masterful collection of stories, After the Funeral and Other Stories plumbs the depths of everyday life to reveal the shifting tides and hidden undercurrents of ordinary relationships. As psychologically astute as they are emotionally rich, these stories illuminate the enduring conflicts between responsibility and freedom, power and desire, convention and subversion, reality and dreams.
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Brilliant
- By e. louise on 09-13-23
By: Tessa Hadley
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Say Hello to My Little Friend
- By: Jennine Capó Crucet
- Narrated by: Krizia Bajos
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Failed Pitbull impersonator Ismael Reyes—you can call him Izzy—might not be the Scarface type, but why should that keep him from trying? Growing up in Miami has shaped him into someone who dreams of being the King of the 305, with the money, power, and respect he assumes comes with it. After finding himself at the mercy of a cease-and-desist letter from Pitbull’s legal team and living in his aunt’s garage, Izzy embarks on an absurd quest to turn himself into a modern-day Tony Montana.
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Solid weird book
- By D B on 02-21-25
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Cinema Love
- A Novel
- By: Jiaming Tang
- Narrated by: Samantha Tan
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
While classic war films played, Old Second and his countrymen found intimacy in the screening rooms. In the box office, Bao Mei sold movie tickets to closeted men, guarding their secrets and finding her own happiness with the projectionist. But when Old Second’s passion for his male lover is revealed, a series of haunting events unfold, propelling these characters toward an uncertain future in America.
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Inventive story elegant prose
- By C. FREEMAN on 06-27-25
By: Jiaming Tang
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The Spoiled Heart
- A Novel
- By: Sunjeev Sahota
- Narrated by: Esh Alladi
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Nayan Olak keeps seeing Helen Fletcher around town. She’s returned with her teenage son to live in the run-down house at the end of the lane, and—though she’s strangely guarded—Nayan can’t help but be drawn to her. He hasn’t risked love since losing his young family in a terrible accident twenty years earlier.
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Misunderstandings lead to life altercations
- By A. L. Frati on 06-25-25
By: Sunjeev Sahota
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The Art of Desire
- By: Stacey Abrams, Selena Montgomery
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
One doomed love affair after another has made lovely Alex Walton swear off men. Now, she's determined to try something that maybe she can succeed at: a writing career. Little does she know that a chance meeting with a strikingly handsome stranger, a mysterious obelisk, and a lost kingdom will change her life forever. As Alex is about to discover, truth can be stranger—and far more dangerous—than fiction.
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Not enough character development
- By S. Smith on 02-19-24
By: Stacey Abrams, and others
Excellent Debut Collection
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Great book and readers
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