The Weight of This World
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Narrated by:
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MacLeod Andrews
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By:
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David Joy
About this listen
Critically acclaimed author David Joy, whose debut, Where All Light Tends to Go, was hailed as "a savagely moving novel that will likely become an important addition to the great body of Southern literature" (The Huffington Post), returns to the mountains of North Carolina with a powerful story about the inescapable weight of the past.
A combat veteran returned from war, Thad Broom can't leave the hardened world of Afghanistan behind, nor can he forgive himself for what he saw there. His mother, April, is haunted by her own demons, a secret trauma she has carried for years. Between them is Aiden McCall, loyal to both but unable to hold them together. Connected by bonds of circumstance and duty, friendship and love, these three lives are blown apart when Aiden and Thad witness the accidental death of their drug dealer and a riot of dope and cash drops in their laps. On a meth-fueled journey to nowhere, they will either find the grit to overcome the darkness or be consumed by it.
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Critic reviews
“Bleakly beautiful...[a] gorgeously written but pitiless novel about a region blessed by nature but reduced to desolation and despair.” (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review)
“Scenes unfold at a furious pace, yet contain such rich description that readers will do well to read slowly, savoring Joy's prose.... Joy's work perfectly aligns with the author's self-described ‘Appalachian noir’ genre, as a sticky film of desperation and tragedy cloaks everything his characters touch. April, Aiden and Thad are hopelessly conflicted, dripping with history and heartache, yet they cling to unique dreams about what life could look like if they carried a bit less weight of the world upon their shoulders.” (Associated Press)
“Joy is a remarkably gifted storyteller. The life he fuels into his characters is so high-test that if they are not lying face down in a pool of blood by novel’s end, they keep rambling through the mind.... How these characters deal with their demons gives redemption a new dimension.” (Charlotte Observer)
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- Unabridged
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E.F. Bloodworth has returned to his home - a forgotten corner of Tennessee - after 20 years of roaming. The wife he walked out on has withered and faded, his three sons are grown and angry. Warren is a womanizing alcoholic, Boyd is driven by jealousy to hunt down his wife's lover, and Brady puts hexes on his enemies from his mamma's porch. Only Fleming, the old man's grandson, treats him with the respect his age commands, and sees past all the hatred to realize the way it can posion a man's soul.
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Story and Narration a perfect match
- By 99hedys on 10-03-15
By: William Gay
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Signals: New and Selected Stories
- By: Tim Gautreaux
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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After the stunning historical novels The Clearing and The Missing, Tim Gautreaux now ranges freely through contemporary life with 12 new stories and eight from previous collections. Most are set in his beloved Louisiana, many hard by or on the Mississippi River, others in North Carolina, and even in midwinter Minnesota. But generally it's heat, humidity, and bugs that beset his people as they wrestle with affairs of the heart, matters of faith, and the pros and cons of tight-knit communities.
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Perfection! Amazing writer/amazing reader
- By Monique on 01-08-19
By: Tim Gautreaux
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Lay Down My Sword and Shield
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Against the backdrop of growing civil rights turmoil in a sultry border town, the hard-drinking ex-POW attorney Hackberry Holland yields to the myriad urgings of his wife, his brother, and his so-called friends to make a bid for a congressional seat - and finds himself embroiled in the seamy world of Texas powerbrokers.
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The Publisher's Summary is Anemic
- By Cat F. on 02-25-10
By: James Lee Burke
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Krampus
- The Yule Lord
- By: Brom
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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One Christmas Eve in a small hollow in Boone County, West Virginia, struggling songwriter Jesse Walker witnesses a strange spectacle: seven devilish figures chasing a man in a red suit toward a sleigh and eight reindeer. When the reindeer leap skyward, taking the sleigh, devil men, and Santa into the clouds, screams follow. Moments later, a large sack plummets back to earth, a magical sack that thrusts the down-on-his-luck singer into the clutches of the terrifying Yule Lord, Krampus.
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5 stars
- By colleen on 11-17-12
By: Brom
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The Wettest County in the World, or Lawless
- A Novel Based on a True Story
- By: Matt Bondurant
- Narrated by: Erik Steele
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The Bondurant Boys were a notorious gang of roughnecks and moonshiners who ran liquor through Franklin County during Prohibition and after. The brothers played a central role in a major conspiracy trial and its violent end. In 1935, Sherwood Anderson, working on a magazine story, finds himself driving along the dusty red roads trying to find the brothers and break the silence that shrouds Franklin County.
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Just outstanding!
- By Rich on 08-18-12
By: Matt Bondurant
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Of Mice and Minestrone
- Hap and Leonard: The Early Years (Hap and Leonard)
- By: Kathleen Kent - introduction, Kasey Lansdale - contributor, Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Hap Collins looks like a good ol’ boy. But even in his misspent youth, his best pal is Leonard Pine, who is Black, gay, and the ultimate outsider. Inseparable friends, Hap and Leonard climb into the boxing ring, visit their families, get in bar fights, and just go fishing - all the while confronting racists, righting wrongs, and eating a whole lot of delicious food.
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Wringing every last drop
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 04-08-23
By: Kathleen Kent - introduction, and others
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Bloodman
- By: Robert Pobi
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In this psychological thriller, Jake Cole returns to his childhood home after his elderly father nearly kills himself by setting himself on fire and plowing through a plate-glass window. Jake’s father - a great American painter - is a man whose shadow Jake has tried to outrun since he was a boy. Now a contractor for the FBI who possesses a unique gift for recreating crime scenes, Jake is pulled into a hauntingly familiar double homicide investigation. He recognizes the artistic signature in the slayings from his childhood.
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Cop Out
- By Alan on 05-28-12
By: Robert Pobi
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Blackbirds
- Miriam Black, Book 1
- By: Chuck Wendig
- Narrated by: Emily Beresford
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Miriam Black knows when you will die. Still in her early twenties, she’s foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, suicides, and slow deaths by cancer. But when Miriam hitches a ride with truck driver Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days he will be gruesomely murdered while he calls her name. Miriam has given up trying to save people; that only makes their deaths happen. No matter what she does, she can’t save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she’ll have to try.
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Not for the faint of heart or kids but exciting
- By Steph on 04-07-14
By: Chuck Wendig
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Far Cry: Absolution
- By: Urban Waite
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Hope County, Montana. Land of the free and the brave, but also home to a fanatical doomsday cult known as The Church of Eden’s Gate that has slowly been infiltrating the residents’ daily lives in the past years. Mary May Fairgrave, a local barkeep, has lost almost everything to the Church: her parents died in suspicious conditions and her brother, entranced by the cult leader’s charismatic words, has vanished. When the authorities refuse to investigate further, she decides to take matters in to her own hands.
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Good story but generic for gameplay story
- By LITRPG Audiobook Reviews on 03-30-19
By: Urban Waite
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Mine
- By: Robert R. McCammon
- Narrated by: Isabelle Gordon
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Back in the 1960s, Mary Terrell shot and killed a man. A former member of the fanatical Storm Front Brigade - a splinter group of the notorious Weathermen - Terrell has stayed one step ahead of the FBI for decades. Living with numerous identities and menial jobs, Terrell's only constants in life have been LSD, psychotic delusions of motherhood, and murderous rage.
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American Radical nightmare!
- By Rob Malone on 04-30-18
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The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 4
- By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, Stephen King, Peter Straub
- Narrated by: Meredith Mitchell, Rebecca Mitchell, Michael Healy, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.
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Only a few decent stories in this bunch.
- By Jerry on 12-06-14
By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, and others
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What listeners say about The Weight of This World
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Elliott S. Keck
- 02-14-18
Enjoyed it.
This book will take you to a place most of us would deny exists in America. It is a place of despair that some never have a choice in escaping.
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- Getshotzi
- 08-15-20
I. AM. BLOWN. AWAY.
I'm an audiobook junkie and I never knew about this book or this author until yesterday. This book will stay with me in a way that few books do. This isn't just worth one credit... It's actually worth 50 credits. Wow! Just wow!!
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- Marsh Nolen
- 11-04-17
Joy goes it again
Loved the narrators performance. This is not a romance. This is not a feel good story. But if you want a gripping, truly engrossing story that actually makes you feel, Joy is it. The writing is so beautifully done it brings tears to my eyes.
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- amazon buyer
- 10-26-21
Love his work
My second book I read by David I have them all now love his writing
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- Joseph
- 11-07-20
Great!
I liked it better than Where the Light Tends to Go. Having grown up in north Georgia, i am very familiar with the landscape and people of Southern Appalachia, and Joy nails it. Joy is becoming one of my favorite Southern writers.
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- linusnc
- 04-24-23
Violent right from the beginning.
This book is not for the faint of heart. It is gripping, powerful, and it pulls no punches. David Joy does a amazing job with realism. The true no holds barred grit is on full display here. If you liked his others you will not be disappointed.
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-01-24
the weight of this world
Perfection. An amazing balance of literary strength and power and backwoods grit and truth. Thank you Mr. Joy!!
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- J. Nickey
- 01-16-21
Gritty and Powerful
Gritty, fast paced Appalachian tale that grabs you from the start and doesn't let go. David Joy is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-26-19
the best David joy book yet
I couldn't believe David could top Where All Light Tends to Go but he has done it with The Weight of This World. David captures what a life of poverty and despair does to people no matter where you grew up. his words flow like music his characters are so real I feel like I know them. in a way I did. I grew up in the area he writes about. you will not want to stop reading once you start.
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- RAMON
- 03-30-17
Well written but women sordid story
The true story of the underclass something like notes from the underground people who never have a chance in life. Unfortunately none of the characters are very appealing and their actions are gruesome and appalling. The author is a good writer and loves to describe The countryside. This book is not for the faint of heart
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