
Pew
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $20.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Bahni Turpin
-
By:
-
Catherine Lacey
About this listen
2021 Audie Award Nominee for Best Literary Fiction & Classics Audiobook
Longlisted for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. One of Publishers Weekly's Best Fiction Books of 2020. One of Amazon's 100 Best Books of 2020.
“The people of this community are stifling, and generous, cruel, earnest, needy, overconfident, fragile and repressive, which is to say that they are brilliantly rendered by their wise maker, Catherine Lacey.” --Rachel Kushner, author of The Flamethrowers
A figure with no discernible identity appears in a small, religious town, throwing its inhabitants into a frenzy
In a small, unnamed town in the American South, a church congregation arrives for a service and finds a figure asleep on a pew. The person is genderless and racially ambiguous and refuses to speak. One family takes in the strange visitor and nicknames them Pew.
As the town spends the week preparing for a mysterious Forgiveness Festival, Pew is shuttled from one household to the next. The earnest and seemingly well-meaning townspeople see conflicting identities in Pew, and many confess their fears and secrets to them in one-sided conversations. Pew listens and observes while experiencing brief flashes of past lives or clues about their origin. As days pass, the void around Pew’s presence begins to unnerve the community, whose generosity erodes into menace and suspicion. Yet by the time Pew’s story reaches a shattering and unsettling climax at the Forgiveness Festival, the secret of who they really are - a devil or an angel or something else entirely - is dwarfed by even larger truths.
Pew, Catherine Lacey’s third novel, is a foreboding, provocative, and amorphous fable about the world today: its contradictions, its flimsy morality, and the limits of judging others based on their appearance. With precision and restraint, one of our most beloved and boundary-pushing writers holds up a mirror to her characters’ true selves, revealing something about forgiveness, perception, and the faulty tools society uses to categorize human complexity.
©2020 Catherine Lacey (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Discomfort of Evening
- A Novel
- By: Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, Michele Hutchison - translator
- Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ten-year-old Jas lives with her strictly religious parents and her siblings on a dairy farm where waste and frivolity are akin to sin. Despite the dreary routine of their days, Jas has a unique way of experiencing her world: her face soft like cheese under her mother’s hands; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads in the village; the sound of “blush words” that aren’t in the Bible. One icy morning, the disciplined rhythm of her family’s life is ruptured by a tragic accident, and Jas is convinced she is to blame.
-
-
Booker winner is a Downer
- By bjs on 09-05-20
By: Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, and others
-
My Husband
- A Novel
- By: Maud Ventura, Emma Ramadan - translator
- Narrated by: Kiiri Sandy
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At forty years old, she has an enviable life: a successful career, stunning looks, a beautiful house in the suburbs, two healthy children, and most importantly, an ideal husband, whose wealthy background allows her to transcend her own social class. After fifteen years together, she is still besotted with him. But she’s never quite sure that her passion is reciprocated.
-
-
Mind numbingly boring and shallow.
- By GAYANE TOROSYAN on 10-27-23
By: Maud Ventura, and others
-
Rouge
- A Novel
- By: Mona Awad
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience.
-
-
What a fun romp!
- By Barbara S on 10-10-23
By: Mona Awad
-
Lapvona
- A Novel
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, believes his mother died giving birth to him. One of Marek’s few consolations is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him when he was a baby. For some people, Ina’s ability to receive transmissions of sacred knowledge from the natural world is a godsend. For others, Ina’s home in the woods is a godless place.
-
-
uncomfortable
- By Stetson on 07-04-22
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
-
Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos
- By: Nash Jenkins
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Foster Dade arrives at Kennedy, an elite boarding school in New Jersey, the year is 2008. Barack Obama begins his first term as president; Vampire Weekend and Passion Pit bump from the newly debuted iPhone; teenagers share confidences and rumors over BlackBerry Messenger and iChat; and the internet as we know it is slowly emerging from its cocoon. So, too, is Foster emerging—a transfer student and anxious young man, Foster is stumbling through adolescence in the wake of his parents’ scandalous divorce.
-
-
Original and Riveting. I Couldn't Stop Listening!
- By Matt S. Lewis on 03-31-25
By: Nash Jenkins
-
Hurricane Season
- By: Fernanda Melchor, Sophie Hughes - translator
- Narrated by: Inés del Castillo, Tim Pabon, Ana Osorio
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Witch is dead. And the discovery of her corpse - by a group of children playing near the irrigation canals - propels the whole village into an investigation of how and why this murder occurred. Rumors and suspicions spread. As the novel unfolds in a dazzling linguistic torrent, with each unreliable narrator lingering on new details, new acts of depravity or brutality, Melchor extracts some tiny shred of humanity from these characters that most would write off as utterly irredeemable, forming a lasting portrait of a damned Mexican village.
-
-
Wow
- By Anonymous User on 11-20-20
By: Fernanda Melchor, and others
-
The Discomfort of Evening
- A Novel
- By: Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, Michele Hutchison - translator
- Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ten-year-old Jas lives with her strictly religious parents and her siblings on a dairy farm where waste and frivolity are akin to sin. Despite the dreary routine of their days, Jas has a unique way of experiencing her world: her face soft like cheese under her mother’s hands; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads in the village; the sound of “blush words” that aren’t in the Bible. One icy morning, the disciplined rhythm of her family’s life is ruptured by a tragic accident, and Jas is convinced she is to blame.
-
-
Booker winner is a Downer
- By bjs on 09-05-20
By: Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, and others
-
My Husband
- A Novel
- By: Maud Ventura, Emma Ramadan - translator
- Narrated by: Kiiri Sandy
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At forty years old, she has an enviable life: a successful career, stunning looks, a beautiful house in the suburbs, two healthy children, and most importantly, an ideal husband, whose wealthy background allows her to transcend her own social class. After fifteen years together, she is still besotted with him. But she’s never quite sure that her passion is reciprocated.
-
-
Mind numbingly boring and shallow.
- By GAYANE TOROSYAN on 10-27-23
By: Maud Ventura, and others
-
Rouge
- A Novel
- By: Mona Awad
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience.
-
-
What a fun romp!
- By Barbara S on 10-10-23
By: Mona Awad
-
Lapvona
- A Novel
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, believes his mother died giving birth to him. One of Marek’s few consolations is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him when he was a baby. For some people, Ina’s ability to receive transmissions of sacred knowledge from the natural world is a godsend. For others, Ina’s home in the woods is a godless place.
-
-
uncomfortable
- By Stetson on 07-04-22
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
-
Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos
- By: Nash Jenkins
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Foster Dade arrives at Kennedy, an elite boarding school in New Jersey, the year is 2008. Barack Obama begins his first term as president; Vampire Weekend and Passion Pit bump from the newly debuted iPhone; teenagers share confidences and rumors over BlackBerry Messenger and iChat; and the internet as we know it is slowly emerging from its cocoon. So, too, is Foster emerging—a transfer student and anxious young man, Foster is stumbling through adolescence in the wake of his parents’ scandalous divorce.
-
-
Original and Riveting. I Couldn't Stop Listening!
- By Matt S. Lewis on 03-31-25
By: Nash Jenkins
-
Hurricane Season
- By: Fernanda Melchor, Sophie Hughes - translator
- Narrated by: Inés del Castillo, Tim Pabon, Ana Osorio
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Witch is dead. And the discovery of her corpse - by a group of children playing near the irrigation canals - propels the whole village into an investigation of how and why this murder occurred. Rumors and suspicions spread. As the novel unfolds in a dazzling linguistic torrent, with each unreliable narrator lingering on new details, new acts of depravity or brutality, Melchor extracts some tiny shred of humanity from these characters that most would write off as utterly irredeemable, forming a lasting portrait of a damned Mexican village.
-
-
Wow
- By Anonymous User on 11-20-20
By: Fernanda Melchor, and others
-
Tender Is the Flesh
- By: Agustina Bazterrica
- Narrated by: Joseph Balderrama
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans - though no one calls them that anymore. His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the "Transition". Now, eating human meat - "special meat" - is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.
-
-
Uhhhhhhh....
- By Josh E. on 12-05-20
-
Luster
- A Novel
- By: Raven Leilani
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edie is stumbling her way through her 20s - sharing a subpar apartment in Bushwick, clocking in and out of her admin job, making a series of inappropriate sexual choices. She is also haltingly, fitfully giving heat and air to the art that simmers inside her. And then she meets Eric, a digital archivist with a family in New Jersey, including an autopsist wife who has agreed to an open marriage - with rules.
-
-
Spellbinding
- By Nana on 08-07-20
By: Raven Leilani
-
A Certain Hunger
- By: Chelsea G. Summers
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eat Pray Love meets American Psycho in a seductive and sinister debut literary thriller. Food critic Dorothy Daniels indulges in her homicidal urges by murdering her lovers and devouring their organs in this intense, visceral, and lushly told tale of food, sex, power, and the pursuit of a very particular taste set between New York and Italy. Please Note: A Certain Hunger contains adult language and depictions of violence. Discretion is advised.
-
-
Ugh.
- By Kimberly on 02-03-20
-
Boy Parts
- By: Eliza Clark
- Narrated by: Eliza Clark
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle. Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina's relationship with her obsessive best friend and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention....
-
-
A modern American psycho but British
- By sofia on 09-23-21
By: Eliza Clark
-
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
- A Novel
- By: Cho Nam-Joo, Jamie Chang - translator
- Narrated by: Kathleen Choe
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a small, tidy apartment on the outskirts of the frenzied metropolis of Seoul lives Kim Jiyoung. A 30-something-year-old “millennial everywoman”, she has recently left her white-collar desk job - in order to care for her newborn daughter full-time - as so many Korean women are expected to do. But she quickly begins to exhibit strange symptoms that alarm her husband, parents, and in-laws: Jiyoung impersonates the voices of other women - alive and even dead, both known and unknown to her.
-
-
This is not a novel.
- By Anonymous User on 02-17-21
By: Cho Nam-Joo, and others
-
Void King
- Warhammer 40,000
- By: Marc Collins
- Narrated by: Joe Shire
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the halcyon days of the Great Crusade, these noble rogue trader dynasties have plied the void in the Emperor’s name, answering to whomsoever sits as the king of the Davamir Compact. There has been profit and adventure and abundance in these times… Yet now the galaxy is changed, divided by the birth of the Great Rift. As plans are drawn up for the most immense crusade imaginable, the Emperor’s reborn son demands that the Compact seek a way across the Rift.
-
-
An ehh story.
- By Shane Barton on 01-17-23
By: Marc Collins
-
Pnin
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the best-loved of Nabokov's novels, Pnin features his funniest and most heart-rending character. Professor Timofey Pnin is a haplessly disoriented Russian emigre precariously employed on an American college campus in the 1950s. Pnin struggles to maintain his dignity through a series of comic and sad misunderstandings, all the while falling victim both to subtle academic conspiracies and to the manipulations of a deliberately unreliable narrator.
-
-
Why not leave their private sorrows to people?
- By Darwin8u on 01-13-20
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
What's Mine and Yours
- By: Naima Coster
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A community in the Piedmont of North Carolina rises in outrage as a county initiative draws students from the largely Black east side of town into predominantly White high schools on the west. For two students, Gee and Noelle, the integration sets off a chain of events that will tie their two families together in unexpected ways over the span of the next 20 years.
-
-
Wonderful book!!
- By Susan 🎧Audible-a-holic🎧 Crowe on 03-15-21
By: Naima Coster
-
Olive Kitteridge
- Fiction
- By: Elizabeth Strout
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
-
-
Depressing! Watse of a credit!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-28-19
By: Elizabeth Strout
-
Acts of Desperation
- By: Megan Nolan
- Narrated by: Lauren Coe
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the first scene of this provocative gut-punch of a novel, our unnamed narrator meets a magnetic writer named Ciaran and falls, against her better judgment, completely in his power. After a brief, all-consuming romance, he abruptly rejects her, sending her into a tailspin of jealous obsession and longing. If he ever comes back to her, she resolves to hang onto him and his love at all costs, even if it destroys her.
-
-
Wonderful and tortured
- By Dr Sophie Henshaw on 05-01-21
By: Megan Nolan
-
Stars in an Italian Sky
- By: Jill Santopolo
- Narrated by: Gabrielle De Cuir
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Genoa, Italy, 1946. Vincenzo and Giovanna fall in love at twenty-one the moment they set eyes on each other. The son of a count and the daughter of a tailor, they belong to opposing worlds. Despite this, the undeniable spark between them quickly burns—until shifts in political power force them each to choose a side. New York, 2017. Although neither quite fits with the other's family, Cassandra and Luca have always felt like a perfect match for each other. But when Luca, an artist, convinces his grandfather and Cass’s grandmother to pose for a painting, past and present collide.
-
-
Live life, love endures
- By Anonymous User on 03-11-23
By: Jill Santopolo
-
All the Children Are Home
- A Novel
- By: Patry Francis
- Narrated by: Kimberly Woods, Nora Hunter, Mia Barron, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Dahlia decided to become a foster mother, she had a few caveats: no howling newborns, no delinquents, and above all, no girls. A harrowing incident years before left her a virtual prisoner in her own home, forever wary of the heartbreak and limitation of a girl’s life. Eleven years after they began fostering, Dahlia and Louie consider their family complete, but when the social worker begs them to take a young girl who has been horrifically abused and neglected, they can’t say no.
-
-
Great Potential, but the Ending Fell Flat
- By Brande Fraley on 05-03-22
By: Patry Francis
Critic reviews
"Narrator Bahni Turpin gives a tour-de-force performance in this strange allegory featuring a nondescript person found sleeping on a church pew in a small, unnamed Southern town.… Turpin's extraordinary range includes everyone from small children to older men and women. In one scene involving the mysterious annual Forgiveness Festival, Turpin switches age and gender with the ease of water slipping through one's fingers. PEW is a strange ride, but trust Turpin to steer the ship." --AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award Winner
"[Bahni] Turpin narrates with a newscaster-like calm in the first person thoughts of the titular character - a mysterious child, somewhat ambiguous in gender and race.… A provocative meditation on the duplicity of appearances, strongly voiced." --Booklist, starred review
What listeners say about Pew
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- KristiDagz
- 10-12-20
What. Was. That?!
Pew tells you a lot about yourself. Does Pew tell you about themselves? Well, you have to listen.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Andrei
- 04-09-22
Masterpiece
I think that it was a masterpiece of postmodern fiction. I think that it has not found its audience yet. I passionately loved this book and keep thinking about it a lot.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- stephanie a king
- 07-29-20
Strange and captivating
A very unique story that was at times infuriating and then beautiful, frustrating and then insightful. Exquisite narration as always from Bahni Turpin.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 07-29-20
Not What I Hoped For...
This book just wasn't great. It was reviewed as almost heartwarming and soul changing but I, unfortunately, wasn't moved at all. Almost bored. I was really looking forward to this, too.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Deb C
- 03-04-24
Originality, Calm, soothing narration
Enjoyed the different perspectives of the book. The slow, calm narrative. Very different original storyline.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- redeyesniper
- 02-25-22
interesting
the book brings forth some interesting thoughts. it executes them well in some ways and poorly in others. the narration of this audio book makes the story engaging.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Debbie W Hall
- 09-15-20
would be great...
for book club discussion. I enjoyed the story. wish I could talk about its meaning with someone.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Robert
- 03-23-21
Good premise, poor execution
The story could have gone in many directions and in the end leaves you hanging. Pew, a person who was found in a church pew that was used as shelter is adopted by the family that finds Pew. The entire books goes without you knowing any concrete facts about Pew. Pew is a gender neutral character, which bothers a lot of the other characters. Pew doesn't remember where they are from, where they are going, or where they have been.
There is a lot in the story to like, such as how people treat others, not only those they know, but those they believe they know and those they do not know at all.
Unfortunately the book spends a lot of time building up the festival event, only to fall flat when the event arrives.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- brenda transon
- 08-20-20
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I JUST LISTENED Too
FOR THE LIFE IF ME I DONT KNOW WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT. THE PERFORMANCE was awesome but I still don’t get what it was about. AND I LISTENED TIL THE END. I love Bahni Turpin but I think I want my credit back. I’m scratching my head on this one.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Naked Eyelashes
- 04-15-24
Calm and Captivating
I'm not sure what to make of this book. I don't have the answers but I know I will be thinking about it for some time to come. It's because of this that I think I enjoyed the book. I still have so many questions but isn't that what a good story should do? The narration is excellent.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!