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I Had a Brother Once
- A Poem, A Memoir
- Narrated by: Adam Mansbach
- Length: 1 hr and 18 mins
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Publisher's summary
A brilliant, genre-defying work - both memoir and epic poem - about the struggle for wisdom, grace, and ritual in the face of unspeakable loss
“A bruised and brave love letter from a brother right here to a brother now gone...a soaring, unblinking gaze into the meaning of life itself.” (Marlon James, author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf)
my father said
david has taken his own life
Adam is in the middle of his own busy life, and approaching a career high in the form of a number-one New York Times best-selling book - when these words from his father open a chasm beneath his feet. I Had a Brother Once is the story of everything that comes after. In the shadow of David’s inexplicable death, Adam is forced to re-remember a brother he thought he knew and to reckon with a ghost, confronting his unsettled family history, his distant relationship with tradition and faith, and his desperate need to understand an event that always slides just out of his grasp. This is an expansive and deeply thoughtful poetic meditation on loss and a raw, darkly funny, human story of trying to create a ritual - of remembrance, mourning, forgiveness, and acceptance - where once there was a life.
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Critic reviews
“Poetry has always been the perfect vehicle for the unwieldy, intractable narrative - the pulsing injustice that refuses to dim, the love that swells unchecked, the numbing tragedy that bleeds past its borders. In I Had a Brother Once - Adam Mansbach’s penetrative chronicle of his younger brother’s suicide - there is an almost unbearable tension between an unrelenting poetic structure that just barely the contains the unthinkable and the exhaustive emotional range of the poem itself. I remember Adam around the time of his brother’s death - if there’s a top of the world, he was on top of that - and it’s sobering to now realize the grief he was shouldering, how vehemently that perfect world had shifted. I Had a Brother Once humbly touts itself as ‘A Poem', but it is so, so much more than that. It is a love story, an unbridled wail, an effectual and resounding clash of heartache and art.” (Patricia Smith, author of the Pulitzer Prize-finalist Incendiary Art)
“In this heartbreaking, brutally candid memoir, Mansbach employs long stanzas of free verse to recount events surrounding his brother's death, struggling through anger, sorrow, and confusion. Poetic conventions allow him to retreat into form, to distill the endless refrains of condolence in a way that re-creates the time grief occupies in tragedy’s immediate aftermath.... For an author who has written everything from screenplays to middle-grade novels to wildly popular picture books, this courageous and devastating memoir in verse stands out.” (Booklist, starred review)
“This is a devastating, brilliant book. Somehow, in its completely authentic pain, it manages also to be full of life, at times even sweetly funny, maybe because we see struggles we recognize: of distance, of authenticity, of parenting, of performance, of love. This book feels deeply necessary, not just for the writer, but for all of us.” (Matthew Zapruder, author of Why Poetry and Father’s Day)
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Story
Every one of us sooner or later walks through hell. The hell of being hurt, the hell of hurting another. The hell of cancer, the hell of a reluctant, thunking shovel full of earth upon the casket of someone we deeply loved, the hell of betrayal, the hell of betraying, the hell of divorce, the hell of a kid in trouble...the hell of knowing that this year, like any year, may be our last. We all walk through hell. The point is not to come out empty-handed.... There is real and profound power in the suffering we endure if we transform that suffering into a more authentic, meaningful life.
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Learning from Pain
- By Dave on 02-20-19
By: Steve Leder
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The Sum of Our Days
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Blair Brown, Isabel Allende
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and as full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul while sharing her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory - and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family.
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She does not disappoint
- By ChiChi's Rule on 06-01-22
By: Isabel Allende
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Alligator Candy
- A Memoir
- By: David Kushner
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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From award-winning journalist David Kushner, Alligator Candy is a reported memoir about family, survival, and the unwavering power of love. David Kushner grew up in the early 1970s in the Florida suburbs. It was when kids still ran free, riding bikes and disappearing into the nearby woods for hours at a time. One morning in 1973, however, everything changed. David’s older brother, Jon, biked through the forest to the convenience store for candy, and never returned.
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Very well done
- By Nic on 06-27-18
By: David Kushner
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Where the Past Begins
- A Writer's Memoir
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Moving from her childhood in Oakland and growing up with her Chinese parents through her success as a novelist, Amy Tan delves into her creative interests in music, the paralysis of beginning a new project, journal writing, and travelling. Where the Past Begins chronicles the making of a writer. With characteristic humor and poignant observation, Tan weaves a nontraditional introspective narrative that is as complex and vibrant as this beloved American novelist's fiction.
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Narration Issues
- By Sara on 12-14-17
By: Amy Tan
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As I Knew Him
- My Dad, Rod Serling
- By: Anne Serling
- Narrated by: Anne Serling
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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To Anne Serling, the imposing figure the public saw hosting The Twilight Zone each week, intoning cautionary observations about fate, chance, and humanity, was not the father she knew. Her fun-loving dad would play on the floor with the dogs, had nicknames for everyone in the family, and was apt to put a lampshade on his head and break out in song. He was her best friend, her playmate, and her confidant. After his unexpected death at 50, Anne, just 20, was left stunned.
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A Beautiful Tribute to a Wonderful Man
- By Becky on 04-12-20
By: Anne Serling
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Broken Horses
- A Memoir
- By: Brandi Carlile
- Narrated by: Brandi Carlile
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Brandi Carlile was born into a musically gifted, impoverished family on the outskirts of Seattle and grew up in a constant state of change, moving from house to house, trailer to trailer, 14 times in as many years. Though imperfect in every way, her dysfunctional childhood was as beautiful as it was strange, and as nurturing as it was difficult. At the age of five, Brandi contracted bacterial meningitis, which almost took her life, leaving an indelible mark on her formative years and altering her journey into young adulthood.
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I have almost 2000 audible books and ...
- By M. Lynn on 04-22-21
By: Brandi Carlile
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Love and Other Ways of Dying
- Essays
- By: Michael Paterniti
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 17 wide-ranging essays collected for the first time in Love and Other Ways of Dying, he brings his full literary powers to bear, pondering happiness and grief, memory and the redemptive power of human connection. In the remote Ukranian countryside, Paterniti picks apples (and faces mortality) with a real-life giant; in Nanjing, China, he confronts a distraught jumper on a suicide bridge.
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Incredibly intimate voice for humanity
- By Ed Hodges on 01-02-16
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Fury
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Salman Rushdie
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The world renowned author of The Satanic Verses and The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman Rushdie is a Whitbread Award winner and recipient of the Booker Prize. His first truly American novel, Fury is a metaphorically rich black comedy that reflects the pressure-cooker of modern life. Malik Solanka, irascible doll-maker and retired historian of ideas, suffers the pain of wanting without knowing exactly what it is he wants.
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surprisingly good
- By David on 11-21-07
By: Salman Rushdie
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Mother Tongue
- By: Demetria Martinez
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 3 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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A nameless El Salvadoran man, fleeing torture and imprisonment, arrives in the United States - his only hope for asylum. The American woman who has volunteered to help him is searching for something to add meaning to her life. When these two lonely people meet, their haunting relationship fulfills their hearts' desires, but it also gives life to their darkest dreams.
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Amazing Story
- By Alexa :3 on 09-26-24
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Lead Me
- Finding Courage to Fight for Your Marriage, Children, and Faith
- By: Matt Hammitt, Bart Millard - Foreword
- Narrated by: Matt Hammitt
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In Lead Me, Matt identifies the tension many men experience when trying to balance work and home life. With bracing honesty, vulnerable storytelling, and practical application, Matt challenges you to be faithful both to God's vocational call and to His call to lead your family well. Discover the extraordinary joy of actively and intentionally pursuing your wife and children. Matt reminds us that it's messy. It's difficult. And it's the most rewarding thing you can do, beyond following Christ.
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Raw reality
- By Hickupnorth on 10-27-24
By: Matt Hammitt, and others
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The Survivors
- A Story of War, Inheritance, and Healing
- By: Adam Frankel
- Narrated by: Adam Frankel, Rob Shapiro
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Adam Frankel’s maternal grandparents survived the Holocaust and built new lives, with new names, in Connecticut. Though they tried to leave the horrors of their past behind, the pain they suffered crossed generational lines - a fact most apparent in the mental health of Adam’s mother. When Adam sat down with her to examine their family history in detail, he learned another shocking secret, this time one that unraveled Adam’s entire understanding of who he is.
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Amazing story
- By Alissa on 12-26-19
By: Adam Frankel
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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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Spare
- By: Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex
- Narrated by: Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow—and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling—and how their lives would play out from that point on.
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Gutterball!
- By Jimmyjoejangles on 01-10-23
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You Better Be Lightning
- By: Andrea Gibson
- Narrated by: Andrea Gibson
- Length: 1 hr and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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You Better Be Lightning ranges from close examination of the deeply personal to the vastness of the world, exploring the expansiveness of the human experience from love to illness, from space to climate change, and so much more in between.
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Disappointed
- By Rikki B. on 01-31-23
By: Andrea Gibson
What listeners say about I Had a Brother Once
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-16-22
Beautiful and Creative Memoir
Beautiful, jarring, deeply poetic, the painting of the pictures.
It’s so many one liners to name. It’s a re read for sure. I love the length. The music got in the way of the narration sometimes but it also somehow went with it.
Beautiful work.
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- vanishday
- 08-09-22
Amazing
loved it can listen to it over and over such passion and love through the heart of the left behind
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- Sally Morsbach
- 11-23-23
The words, poetry of grief
Description of grief: raw, profound, vulnerable. Concise in “ real time “ heartfelt”. Thank you for being able to bring voice to your pain
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