Preview
  • Stay Awake

  • Stories
  • By: Dan Chaon
  • Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
  • Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (29 ratings)

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Stay Awake

By: Dan Chaon
Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
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Publisher's summary

In these haunting, suspenseful stories, lost, fragile, searching characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland. They have experienced intense love or loss, grief or loneliness, displacement or disconnection - and find themselves in unexpected, dire, and sometimes unfathomable situations. A father's life is upended by his son's night terrors - and disturbing memories of the first wife and child he abandoned; a foster child receives a call from the past and begins to remember his birth mother; a divorced woman experiences her own dark version of "empty-nest syndrome". They exist in a place by the window late at night when the streets are empty and the world appears to be quiet. But you are up, unable to sleep. So you stay awake.

©2012 Dan Chaon (P)2012 Dreamscape Media, LLC
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Critic reviews

"With this arresting collection, Chaon again demonstrates his mastery of the short story.... [It] brings readers fantastically close, slowly drawing them into the anxiety or loneliness or remorse of his characters, and building great anticipation for the twists to come." ( Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about Stay Awake

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

I really wanted this book to be a fantastic listen

Really hard to follow, which is sad as well as frustrating because I really like the author.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Stories that didn't keep me awake

What did you like best about Stay Awake? What did you like least?

It was something to listen to and there were twists and turns in the story... but as each story ended I was left wondering.

What could Dan Chaon have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

I thought the ending of one story and the beginning of another story was too close together... I didn't get a sense a few times that the previous story had ended and now I was listening to another story...

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No, I don' t think so.

Any additional comments?

I followed the stories and they were different from most stories... I was wondering if there was a moral or teaching point of the stories... At some points, this author reminded me or Flannery O'Connor and her short stories.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Nice ideas, but no punch

Would you try another book from Dan Chaon and/or Kirby Heyborne?

Perhaps, if I had nothing else to try, but probably not.

What could Dan Chaon have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

These stories seemed to go nowhere. They lack resolution and closure. I couldn't tell when the story was over.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Narration was good. I have no complaints with that.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

disappointment. The story ideas presented had real potential, but didn't reach it.

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