
The Abortion
An Historical Romance 1966
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

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $13.22
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Will Damron
About this listen
A public library in California where none of the books have ever been published is full of romantic possibilities. But when the librarian and his girlfriend must travel to Tijuana, the Kingdom of Fire and Water, they experience a series of strange encounters.
©1971 Richard Brautigan (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Trout Fishing in America
- A Novel
- By: Richard Brautigan
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 3 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Brautigan's world is one of gentle magic and marvelous laughter, of the incredibly beautiful and the beautifully incredible. Trout Fishing in America is a pseudonym for the miraculous. A journey that begins at the foot of the Benjamin Franklin statue in San Francisco's Washington Square, that wanders through the wonders of America's rural waterways, and that ends, inevitably, with mayonnaise. Funny, wild, and sweet, Trout Fishing in America is an incomparable guidebook to the delights of exploration.
-
-
Bizarre
- By Arthur on 07-30-17
-
A Confederate General from Big Sur
- By: Richard Brautigan
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
California, 1957. Lee Mellon believes he is the descendant of the only Confederate general to have come from Big Sur and is himself a seeker of truth in his own modern-day war against the status quo. For the first time in audio, A Confederate General from Big Sur was the late Richard Brautigan's first published novel, written when he was 28.
-
-
Fun story - audio is fine
- By Sam H. on 03-07-19
-
The Hawkline Monster
- A Gothic Western
- By: Richard Brautigan
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The time is 1902. The setting, eastern Oregon. Magic Child, a 15-year-old Native American girl, wanders into the wrong whorehouse looking for the right men. She finds Cameron and Greer, two gunmen taking a timeout from the game after an aborted job in Hawaii. Their violent past doesn't concern Magic Child. She wants them to kill a monster for her, one she says lives in the ice caves under the basement of Miss Hawkline's yellow house, and one she says has killed before. But the more she tells them about the monster, the more her story unravels.
-
-
You will either love this or hate this
- By Kindle Customer on 09-17-17
-
So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away
- By: Richard Brautigan
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 3 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1979, and a man is recalling the events of his 12th summer, when he bought bullets for his gun instead of a hamburger. Through the eyes, ears, and voice of Brautigan's youthful protagonist, the listener is gently led into a small-town tale where the narrator accidentally shoots and kills his best friend. The novel deals with the repercussions of this tragedy and its recurring theme of "what if", which fuels anguish, regret, and self-blame, as well as some darkly comic passages of bittersweet romance and despair.
-
-
Short, but so sweet!
- By Sheltopia on 04-13-18
-
Dreaming of Babylon
- A Private Eye Novel 1942
- By: Richard Brautigan
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 3 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is early 1942. You are in San Francisco, and you need a private eye. Sam Spade is rumored to be in Istanbul. The Continental Op has been drafted and is a sergeant in the Aleutians. Philip Marlowe is up at Little Fawn Lake investigating the disappearance of Mrs. Derace Kingsley. Lew Archer is in the army. Who's left? Nobody but C. Card. You haven't heard of C. Card? That's all right. Nobody has.
-
-
Inane
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 11-04-23
-
An Unfortunate Woman
- A Journey
- By: Richard Brautigan
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Brautigan was an original - brilliant and wickedly funny. His books resonated with the 1960s, making him an overnight counterculture hero. Dark, funny, and exquisitely haunting, his final book-length fiction explores the fragile, mysterious shadowland surrounding death. Told with classic Brautigan wit, poetic style, and mordant irony, An Unfortunate Woman assumes the form of a peripatetic journal chronicling the protagonist's travels and oblique ruminations on the suicide of one woman and the death of a close friend from cancer.
-
Trout Fishing in America
- A Novel
- By: Richard Brautigan
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 3 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Brautigan's world is one of gentle magic and marvelous laughter, of the incredibly beautiful and the beautifully incredible. Trout Fishing in America is a pseudonym for the miraculous. A journey that begins at the foot of the Benjamin Franklin statue in San Francisco's Washington Square, that wanders through the wonders of America's rural waterways, and that ends, inevitably, with mayonnaise. Funny, wild, and sweet, Trout Fishing in America is an incomparable guidebook to the delights of exploration.
-
-
Bizarre
- By Arthur on 07-30-17
-
A Confederate General from Big Sur
- By: Richard Brautigan
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
California, 1957. Lee Mellon believes he is the descendant of the only Confederate general to have come from Big Sur and is himself a seeker of truth in his own modern-day war against the status quo. For the first time in audio, A Confederate General from Big Sur was the late Richard Brautigan's first published novel, written when he was 28.
-
-
Fun story - audio is fine
- By Sam H. on 03-07-19
-
The Hawkline Monster
- A Gothic Western
- By: Richard Brautigan
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The time is 1902. The setting, eastern Oregon. Magic Child, a 15-year-old Native American girl, wanders into the wrong whorehouse looking for the right men. She finds Cameron and Greer, two gunmen taking a timeout from the game after an aborted job in Hawaii. Their violent past doesn't concern Magic Child. She wants them to kill a monster for her, one she says lives in the ice caves under the basement of Miss Hawkline's yellow house, and one she says has killed before. But the more she tells them about the monster, the more her story unravels.
-
-
You will either love this or hate this
- By Kindle Customer on 09-17-17
-
So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away
- By: Richard Brautigan
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 3 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1979, and a man is recalling the events of his 12th summer, when he bought bullets for his gun instead of a hamburger. Through the eyes, ears, and voice of Brautigan's youthful protagonist, the listener is gently led into a small-town tale where the narrator accidentally shoots and kills his best friend. The novel deals with the repercussions of this tragedy and its recurring theme of "what if", which fuels anguish, regret, and self-blame, as well as some darkly comic passages of bittersweet romance and despair.
-
-
Short, but so sweet!
- By Sheltopia on 04-13-18
-
Dreaming of Babylon
- A Private Eye Novel 1942
- By: Richard Brautigan
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 3 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is early 1942. You are in San Francisco, and you need a private eye. Sam Spade is rumored to be in Istanbul. The Continental Op has been drafted and is a sergeant in the Aleutians. Philip Marlowe is up at Little Fawn Lake investigating the disappearance of Mrs. Derace Kingsley. Lew Archer is in the army. Who's left? Nobody but C. Card. You haven't heard of C. Card? That's all right. Nobody has.
-
-
Inane
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 11-04-23
-
An Unfortunate Woman
- A Journey
- By: Richard Brautigan
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Brautigan was an original - brilliant and wickedly funny. His books resonated with the 1960s, making him an overnight counterculture hero. Dark, funny, and exquisitely haunting, his final book-length fiction explores the fragile, mysterious shadowland surrounding death. Told with classic Brautigan wit, poetic style, and mordant irony, An Unfortunate Woman assumes the form of a peripatetic journal chronicling the protagonist's travels and oblique ruminations on the suicide of one woman and the death of a close friend from cancer.
-
In Watermelon Sugar
- By: Richard Brautigan
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 2 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
iDEATH is a place where the sun shines a different color every day and where people travel to the length of their dreams. Rejecting the violence and hate of the old gang at the Forgotten Works, they lead gentle lives in watermelon sugar. In this book, Richard Brautigan discovers and expresses the mood of the counterculture generation.
-
-
Shout Out To My English Professor
- By Alyx on 05-25-21
-
Bluebeard
- The Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian (1916-1988)
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Rabo Karabekian, a moderately successful surrealist painter who we meet late in life and see struggling (like all of Vonnegut's key characters) with the dregs of unresolved pain and the consequences of brutality. Loosely based on the legend of Bluebeard (best realized in Bela Bartok's one-act opera), the novel follows Karabekian through the last events in his life that is heavy with women, painting, artistic ambition, artistic fraudulence, and as of yet unknown consequence.
-
-
Kurt Vonnegut explores the arts
- By Darwin8u on 12-28-17
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
Jailbird
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Walter Starbuck, a career humanist and eventual low-level aide in the Nixon White House, is implicated in Watergate and jailed, after which he (like Howard Campbell in Mother Night) works on his memoirs. Starbuck is innocent (his office was used as a base for the Watergate shenanigans of which he had no knowledge), and yet he is not innocent (he has collaborated with power unquestioningly and served societal order all his life). He represents another Vonnegut Everyman caught amongst forces he neither understands nor can defend.
-
-
a fool and his self respect are soon parted
- By Darwin8u on 11-18-16
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
Hocus Pocus
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eugene Debs Hartke describes an odyssey from college professor to prison inmate to prison warden back again to prisoner in another of Vonnegut's bitter satirical explorations of how and where (and why) the American dream begins to die. Employing his characteristic narrative device - a retrospective diary in which the protagonist retraces his life at its end, a desperate and disconnected series of events here in Hocus Pocus show Vonnegut with his mask off and his rhetorical devices unshielded.
-
-
Vonnegut Imitating Vonnegut
- By Joe Kraus on 08-06-18
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
The Man in the High Castle
- By: Philip K. Dick
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war - and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.
-
-
Alternative history
- By Michael G Kurilla on 07-28-15
By: Philip K. Dick
-
Naked Lunch
- The Restored Text
- By: William S. Burroughs
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Naked Lunch is one of the most important novels of the 20th century, a book that redefined not just literature but American culture. An unnerving tale of a narcotics addict unmoored in New York, Tangiers, and, ultimately, a nightmarish wasteland known as Interzone.
-
-
Delightful rendition
- By csk on 10-11-12
Related to this topic
-
The Honeymoon
- By: Jane E. James
- Narrated by: Rose Robinson, Sean Burke, Leena Makoff, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Timothy and Jonah, wealthy entrepreneurs with a spoiled son, hide sins from their past—one involving a death on a cruise, the other a crime in Bali. Nathan and Samantha, the hot ex-nanny turned trophy wife, grapple with infertility and a shocking paternity secret. Bartosz and Angelika (he’s a chef, she’s a former sex worker) carry debts to the other couples they don’t even realize they owe. Over fourteen days, the couples bond—but their pasts are too deeply intertwined to stay hidden. The sly concierge, Putu, knows more than he lets on.
-
-
Great storytelling!
- By Ashley R on 03-31-25
By: Jane E. James
-
Hitchhikers
- By: Ben H. Winters
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annie has always had high hopes for her future. But the reality of her life just isn’t measuring up. She loves her fiancé, Greg–doesn’t she? She’s going to get her degree and open her own business–won’t she? Then, a strange old woman shows up outside her house, and she seems to know a lot about Annie. An awful lot. Annie could tell the old woman to get lost. Yet there’s something about her Annie just can’t shake. And what she learns could change her life forever–but is it the life she envisioned?
-
-
The ever present battle between past and future.
- By Kindle Customer on 03-14-25
By: Ben H. Winters
-
George Orwell’s 1984
- An Audible Original adaptation
- By: George Orwell, Joe White - adaptation
- Narrated by: Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.
-
-
A Revelation!
- By wotsallthisthen on 04-07-24
By: George Orwell, and others
-
The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
-
-
The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Nemo71 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
-
The Answer Is No
- A Short Story
- By: Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth DeNoma - translator
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 1 hr and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
-
-
Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
-
Say No More
- By: Caroline Overington
- Narrated by: Anna Skellern
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.
-
-
Seriously, that was the ending?
- By alicia in athens on 02-13-25
-
The Honeymoon
- By: Jane E. James
- Narrated by: Rose Robinson, Sean Burke, Leena Makoff, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Timothy and Jonah, wealthy entrepreneurs with a spoiled son, hide sins from their past—one involving a death on a cruise, the other a crime in Bali. Nathan and Samantha, the hot ex-nanny turned trophy wife, grapple with infertility and a shocking paternity secret. Bartosz and Angelika (he’s a chef, she’s a former sex worker) carry debts to the other couples they don’t even realize they owe. Over fourteen days, the couples bond—but their pasts are too deeply intertwined to stay hidden. The sly concierge, Putu, knows more than he lets on.
-
-
Great storytelling!
- By Ashley R on 03-31-25
By: Jane E. James
-
Hitchhikers
- By: Ben H. Winters
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annie has always had high hopes for her future. But the reality of her life just isn’t measuring up. She loves her fiancé, Greg–doesn’t she? She’s going to get her degree and open her own business–won’t she? Then, a strange old woman shows up outside her house, and she seems to know a lot about Annie. An awful lot. Annie could tell the old woman to get lost. Yet there’s something about her Annie just can’t shake. And what she learns could change her life forever–but is it the life she envisioned?
-
-
The ever present battle between past and future.
- By Kindle Customer on 03-14-25
By: Ben H. Winters
-
George Orwell’s 1984
- An Audible Original adaptation
- By: George Orwell, Joe White - adaptation
- Narrated by: Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.
-
-
A Revelation!
- By wotsallthisthen on 04-07-24
By: George Orwell, and others
-
The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
-
-
The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Nemo71 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
-
The Answer Is No
- A Short Story
- By: Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth DeNoma - translator
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 1 hr and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
-
-
Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
-
Say No More
- By: Caroline Overington
- Narrated by: Anna Skellern
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.
-
-
Seriously, that was the ending?
- By alicia in athens on 02-13-25
What listeners say about The Abortion
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mr Paolo Bear
- 03-27-21
Favourite Brautigan so far
Been listening to all Richard Brautigan’s books since they popped up in the Included section and this has been my favourite. I’m finding his style delightful and this one especially beautiful and funny. I really loved The Hawkline Monster and Dreaming Of Babylon too.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- lesley george
- 01-22-20
Well done by writer and narrator!!
I love Richard Brautigan stories and this one is my favorite! I'm so glad to hear that it was read by someone who cared about the book! A true beat writer!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Stephen
- 01-27-19
I loved it
After hearing a piece about this book on NPR I decided to see if it was on Audible. I loved everything about it. The narrator was great. The story is not packed with action, but the thoughts and reflections of the narrator are funny, relatable, and really help to flesh out a full character.
My only complaint is with the production of this audiobook. For some reason Chapter 24 doesn't include the narrators lines. The reader will say the other characters lines as normal. Then there will be a short pause and he says "I said," as if concluding a comment made by the narrator. This continues for the duration of the chapter, which thankfully is only several minutes long. Very frustrating. I hope someone can correct this as this is a great book, and I wouldn't want someone else to get discouraged because of this production error.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- hman
- 01-18-19
about people and books and stuff.
The title while appropriate is not the entirety of the story. This is about a library. A library whose purpose it is to welcome and store personally written books from regular if somewhat eccentric patrons. The almost Zen like pacing is almost beyond relaxing and comforting.
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
- Steve Wood
- 03-23-19
Waste of time.
This book was featured on was written through the hand of a man who wanted to delight in his sexist chauvinist fantasies and bore us with all the details. I kept listening all the way through to find the hook or the draw or some redeeming quality, but even the ending was flat and disappointing.
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
- Marcelle Roy
- 01-08-19
Worst book ever.
I listened to the whole book wondering if it would improve but the juvenile fascination with Vida's looks and the odd simplistic metaphors got worse and worse. If it's a commentary on 1966, boy am I glad 53 years have passed. No thank you!
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
- Jean Evans
- 11-01-21
Weird & Not Enjoyable
I kept listening waiting to understand the message of the book. The end finally came and I was still waiting for the message - story - something. It never arrived. Total waste of my time!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!