
The Long Room
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Narrated by:
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Michael Healy
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By:
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Francesca Kay
About this listen
London. December 1981. The IRA is on the attack, a cold war is being waged, another war is just over the horizon, and Stephen Donaldson spends his days listening. When he first joined the Institute, he expected to encounter glamorous, high-risk espionage. Instead he gets the tape-recorded conversations of ancient Communists and ineffectual revolutionaries - until the day he is assigned a new case: the ultra-secret PHOENIX, a suspected internal leak.
The monotony of Stephen's routine is broken, but it's not PHOENIX who captures his imagination. It's the target's wife, Helen. Beset by isolation and loneliness, Stephen becomes dangerously obsessed with Helen, risking his job to keep his fragile connection to her and inadvertently setting himself up for a fall that will forever change his life.
With compassion and tenderness and moments of unexpected humor, Francesca Kay charts the way in which imagination, projection, and desire overwhelm the paucity of Stephen's life and identity. As beautiful as it is intense, The Long Room explores a mind under pressure and the wilder cravings of the heart.
©2016 Francesca Kay (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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I’d read in a review that Stephen’s character is unbelievable, being that he is very sensitive, but I disagree; some of the most beautiful sonnets written by men. Stephen, though he has many endearing inner qualities, is sorely lacking as a romantic interest; the sort of man who creeps around, but never makes a move. I wanted to like him, but couldn’t. I could not like anyone in this book, though I tried. I have nothing against the quiet novel about ordinary people, but this is like a plain bowl of oatmeal and nothing in the cupboard to flavor it.
I paid meticulous attention throughout, but lost track during the last few chapters and now have no idea what exactly happened, nor do I care to go back and find out.
If I were the novelist, would be furious that something I’d made an effort at is reduced by the voice; such beautiful writing deserves a narrator with more panache; near painful to listen to.
Disappointed
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Dull Spy Novel?
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While the author is talented at describing things both real and imagined in the lead character's world, much of the detail did nothing to move the plot along. Along that line, several characters/bystanders were developed to no effective end. Presumably, everything in the story was there as background to explain or illustrate the protagonist's (Steven) mental inner workings.
Finally, cold war espionage is irrelevant to the journey Steven takes in and out of fantasy. He could have just as well been a postman or auto mechanic. If you are looking for spy thriller suspense or tension, you find very little of it in The Long Room.
The novel could have been greatly improved, in my opinion, if Steven's various fears, frustrations and self-inflicted plight could have been worked into a story more relevant to the spy genre and which took place equally within his mind as in the real world.
Unfocused and Unfulfilling
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Slow but okay until the end…
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Beautifully written!
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I've Started This Over Five Times Now
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