The Good Life
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Narrated by:
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Robertson Dean
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By:
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Jay McInerney
About this listen
Hailed by Newsweek as “a superb and humane social critic” with, according to The Wall Street Journal, “all the true instincts of a major novelist,” Jay McInerney unveils a story of love, family, conflicting desires, and catastrophic loss in his most powerfully searing work thus far.
Clinging to a semiprecarious existence in TriBeCa, Corrine and Russell Calloway have survived a separation and are thoroughly wonderstruck by young twins whose provenance is nothing less than miraculous, even as they contend with the faded promise of a marriage tinged with suspicion and deceit.
Meanwhile, several miles uptown and perched near the top of the Upper East Side’s social register, Luke McGavock has postponed his accumulation of wealth in an attempt to recover the sense of purpose now lacking in a life that often gives him pause - especially with regard to his teenage daughter, whose wanton extravagance bears a horrifying resemblance to her mother’s. But on a September morning, brightness falls horribly from the sky, and people worlds apart suddenly find themselves working side by side at the devastated site, feeling lost anywhere else, yet battered still by memory and regret, by fresh disappointment and unimaginable shock.
What happens, or should happen, when life stops us in our tracks, or our own choices do? What if both secrets and secret needs, long guarded steadfastly, are finally revealed? What is the good life? Posed with astonishing understanding and compassion, these questions power a novel rich with characters and events, both comic and harrowing, revelatory about not only New York after the attacks but also the toll taken on those lucky enough to have survived them.
Wise, surprising, and, ultimately, heart-stoppingly redemptive, The Good Life captures lives that allow us to see - through personal, social, and moral complexity - more clearly into the heart of things.
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History professor Ned Brummel is living happily with his partner of 12 years in small-town Maine when he receives a phone call from his estranged friend - Jack - telling him that another friend - Andy - is very ill and possibly near death. As Ned boards a plane to Chicago on his way to his friend's bedside, he embarks on another journey into memory, examining the major events and small moments that have shaped his world and his relationships with these two very different, very important men.
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To Every Season...
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Nearly Normal
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- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
In her best-selling memoir North of Normal, Cea wrote with grace about her unconventional childhood - her early years living in a tipi in Alberta with her pot-smoking, free-loving counterculture family. But her struggles do not end when she leaves her family at the age of 13 to become a model. Honest and daring, Nearly Normal reveals the many ways that Cea's unconventional childhood continues to reverberate through the years.
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This one is just not for me
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Saints for All Occasions
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Story
Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
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The narration ruined it
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Performance
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Story
For a long time, Nadja Spiegelman believed her mother was a fairy. More than her famous father, Maus creator Art Spiegelman, and even more than most mothers, hers - French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly - exerted a force over reality that was both dazzling and daunting. As Nadja's body changed and "began to whisper to the adults around me in a language I did not understand", their relationship grew tense.
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Aweful
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An Available Man
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When Edward Schuyler - a modest and bookish 62-year-old science teacher - is widowed, he finds himself ambushed by female attention. There are plenty of unattached women around, but a healthy, handsome, available man is a rare and desirable creature. Edward receives phone calls from widows seeking love, or at least lunch, while well-meaning friends try to set him up at dinner parties. The problem is that Edward doesn’t feel available. He’s still mourning his beloved wife, Bee, and prefers solitude and the familiar routine of work, gardening, and bird-watching.
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Lovely book, easy read, wonderful characters
- By Molly-o on 02-17-12
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Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin
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When Nicole Hardy’s eye-opening "Modern Love" column appeared in the New York Times, the response from readers was overwhelming. Hardy’s essay, which exposed the conflict between being true to herself as a woman and remaining true to her Mormon faith, struck a chord with women coast-to-coast. Now in her funny, intimate, and thoughtful memoir, Nicole Hardy explores how she came, at the age of 35, to a crossroads regarding her faith and her identity.
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This Book Spoke to Me
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Babylon Sisters
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Catherine, busy working with refugee and immigrant women through her small firm, Babylon Sisters, has taken on a powerful new client. She doesn't have much time for Phoebe's complicated questions of paternity - that is, until Phoebe's real father, B. J., a renowned investigative reporter, shows up in town to work on a story connected to Catherine.
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Sister Love
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By: Pearl Cleage
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The Canterbury Sisters
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- Unabridged
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Che Milan's life is falling apart. Not only has her longtime lover abruptly dumped her, but her eccentric, demanding mother has recently died. When an urn of ashes arrives along with a note reminding Che of a half-forgotten promise to take her mother to Canterbury, Che finds herself reluctantly undertaking a pilgrimage. Within days she joins a group of women who are walking the 60 miles from London to the shrine of Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.
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The Canterbury Sisters
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By: Kim Wright
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A Happy Marriage
- A Novel
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A Happy Marriage is both intimate and expansive: It is the story of Enrique Sabas and his wife, Margaret, a novel that alternates between the romantic misadventures of the first weeks of their courtship and the final months of Margaret’s life as she says good-bye to her family, friends, children, and Enrique.
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A Difficult Review -- A Difficult Read
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Nightwatcher, the first in a riveting new series, takes place in the days immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A serial killer is loose in New York City, and Allison Taylor may be the only one who can identify him. She doesn’t know the killer has now set his sights on her—and unless she acts fast, she’ll be his next victim.
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Nightwatcher!!!
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Performance
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Eight years ago, Adam Elliot made the biggest mistake of his life. Now that mistake is coming back to haunt him. His family’s beloved vineyard has gone into foreclosure, and the new owner is the sister of the only man he’s ever loved - the man he dumped under pressure from family and friends who thought the match was beneath him. When Freddy Wentworth, aka the bad boy of Bishop’s Glen, left town with a broken heart, he vowed never to return. But a recently widowed friend needs his help. He’s a rich and famous celebrity chef now, though, so everyone can just eff right off.
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✫✫ 3.5 Stars ✫✫
- By ❤️Cyndi Marie❤️🎧Audiobook Addicts🎧 on 04-26-19
By: Jenny Holiday
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What listeners say about The Good Life
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- booklover
- 03-16-06
wish it wouldn't end
This is the first novel I've encountered that uses 9/11 as a setting with no political intent or agenda, just an interesting, metaphorical background to an engrossing love story. If you want to know what it's like to be an upscale, Manhattan "ordinary" family during 2001, you can't get any more real than this. Portrait of private school teen life is particularly (and sadly) bullseye. Bravo.
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Overall
- Alnia Perpoz
- 08-18-09
The ending is "To die..."
Witty and insightful, with the hand on the pulse of current NYC culture, this novel is attractive for its portraits of NYC middle and upper classes.
After 9/11, America (for a short time) fell in love with its rich, alongside its firefighters and police officers. Sex was another prominent response to the tragedy. This book explores both in a compelling way.
The plot is borrowed from a vacation romance novel - rich boy, poor girl fall in love while on a break from their regular life. The dramatic tension comes from their realization that the state is temporary. Shmear a layer of 9/11 on it and voula - you got The Good Life. Inane.
But the intelligence of cultural observations and penetration of emotional complexity hangs enough meat on the plot to make it a very palatable read. And the ending is to die...
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Overall
- Chuck
- 06-01-09
Great book and great narration
Jay McInerney captures the New York scene post 9/11 with great insight. He seems to know the city and its characters and portrays them with great accuracy. Enjoyed the book a great deal and also enjoyed the narration.
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Overall
- L. Fadden
- 08-08-06
A disappointment
The first half showed great promise. The second half was like a harlequin romance. I only kept listening because I thought for sure it would get back on track. It didn't.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Scott
- 08-30-06
The Bridges of Why Am I Reading This Crap
So, I’ve got this little disorder. Just this one: Once I begin reading a book, I am compelled to finish it. Regardless of how much I dislike it, I continue to pick up the book… continue to read.
After finishing Brett Easton Ellis’ excellent Lunar Park, I wanted to read something by Jay Mcinerny. Jay is a character in Lunar Park and is best known for his breakthrough novel Bright Lights, Big City. Not sure what posessed me, but rather than going for the easy bet and reading BL, BC, I made the error of picking out The Good Life, Jay’s latest.
Bleh.
The Good Life reads like Bridges of Madison County for the middle-aged urbanite. Set in NY, NY around the time of 9/11, the novel tells the story of a couple of priveledged New Yorkers too lazy to work at their own marriages that fall easily into illicit love amongst the Ground Zero soup kitchens. If "illicit love" makes you think "Harlequin Romance", then you’ve got the right idea: there’s enough trashy bodice-ripping in there to satisfy the requirements of the genre.
There’s also a large helping of grief porn if you’re into that sort of thing. The jumpers, the flee-ers, the diggers and the body bags… Jay’s got it covered.
Learn from my mistake. Read Bright Lights, Big City. It really is as good as you’ve heard.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Deborah
- 10-31-06
DECENT
This story was decent, nothing more.
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Overall
- Dave
- 03-13-06
Well writen, but ultimately pathetic
A book about a bunch a self obsessed rich New Yorkers who keep lameting that "The Good Life" has come to an end right around the time 9/11 happened. I mean come on, can you really say that the stock market crash of the eighties was just as bad as 9/11??
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Carolann Moore
- 03-02-06
Could have been so much better.
This is a good story...however the author has a link with former president Bill Clinton for his fascination with one particular activity in the White House. The author refers to this no less than 50 times throughout the book. Also the 4 letter word is used ...every other. I don't know many people who are obsessed with...or use the 4 letter word in casual conversation constantly. At least not educated people who live the "Good Life:" as the author tries to convey. The author has much more potential than is displayed in this story. The conversation takes away from the tenderness in the story.
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