The Western Alienation Merit Badge
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Saffron Henderson
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By:
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Nancy Jo Cullen
About this listen
Set in Calgary in 1982, during the recession that arrived on the heels of Canada’s National Energy Program, The Western Alienation Merit Badge follows the Murray family as they struggle with grief and find themselves on the brink of financial ruin. After the death of her stepmother, Frances "Frankie" Murray returns to Calgary to help her father, Jimmy, and her sister, Bernadette, pay the mortgage on the family home. When Robyn, a long-lost friend, becomes their house guest, old tensions are reignited and Jimmy, Bernadette, and Frances find themselves increasingly alienated from one another.
Part family drama, part queer coming-of-age story, The Western Alienation Merit Badge explores the complex dynamics of a small family falling apart.
Bespeak Audio Editions brings Canadian voices to the world with audiobook editions of some of the country’s greatest works of literature, performed by Canadian actors.
©2019 Nancy Jo Cullen (P)2019 Bespeak Audio EditionsListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"At first blush, this is a quirky, queer coming-of-age novel. In her stripped-down, everyday prose, Cullen details the small hurts and moments of silence that break Frankie’s heart when she refuses to hide her sexuality from her conservative family.... The Western Alienation Merit Badge is a moving portrait of fathers and daughters, sisters, friendship and the mistakes we all make along the way." (Dene Moore, Toronto Star)
"The Western Alienation Merit Badge was a pleasure to read, and in terms of craft is remarkable for two particular features. The first is for its points of view, which move between characters providing vastly different perspectives on the same situation, and while the few times this happened mid-chapter it was a bit jarring, the result of this approach is a complex and multi-layered narrative that is really effective in particular because of how Cullen avoids cliches and sentimentality in creating her characters and their dynamic." (Kerry Clare, Pickle Me This)
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Story
Clare and Henry have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was 36. They were married when Clare was 23 and Henry was 31. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.
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One of my favorite books
- By Joey on 01-13-08
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The Night Always Comes
- A Novel
- By: Willy Vlautin
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Barely 30, Lynette is exhausted. Saddled with bad credit and juggling multiple jobs, some illegally, she’s been diligently working to buy the house she lives in with her mother and developmentally disabled brother Kenny. Portland’s housing prices have nearly quadrupled in 15 years, and the owner is giving them a good deal. Lynette knows it’s their last best chance to own their own home - and obtain the security they’ve never had. While she has enough for the down payment, she needs her mother to cover the rest of the asking price.
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Willy knows tragedy
- By Phil Bailey on 08-03-21
By: Willy Vlautin
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Kissing Games of the World
- By: Sandi Kahn Shelton
- Narrated by: Myra Platt
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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What if the one person you can't bear to be with is also the one person you can't bear to be without? Jamie McClintock is a free-spirited artist and single mother who has at last found peace and freedom sharing a farmhouse with an elderly man and his young grandson. But when the old man dies suddenly her idyllic country life comes to a halt as the old man's estranged son, Nate, returns to claim the house and his child.
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Great Writer, Great Narrator ! Loved it!
- By Ms. Critic on 05-30-09
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Autobiography of a Fat Bride
- True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood
- By: Laurie Notaro
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In Autobiography of a Fat Bride, Laurie Notaro tries painfully to make the transition from all-night partyer and bar-stool regular to mortgagee with plumbing problems and no air conditioning. Laurie finds grown-up life just as harrowing as her reckless youth, as she meets Mr. Right, moves in, settles down, and crosses the toe-stubbing threshold of matrimony.
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Hilarious
- By MissSusie66 on 05-10-12
By: Laurie Notaro
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Whiskey & Ribbons
- By: Leesa Cross-Smith
- Narrated by: Larry Heron, Joe Bearor, Tunisia Hardison
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in contemporary Louisville, Leesa Cross-Smith's mesmerizing first novel surrounding the death of a police officer is a requiem for marriage, friendship, and family, from an author Roxane Gay has called "a consummate storyteller". Evi - a classically-trained ballerina - was nine months pregnant when her husband Eamon was killed in the line of duty on a steamy morning in July. Now, it is winter, and Eamon's adopted brother Dalton has moved in to help her raise six-month-old Noah.
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Beautifully Tragic and Heart Healing
- By Jennifer Glover on 08-17-18
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The Story of Arthur Truluv
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Berg
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Three people find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of belonging in this deeply moving novel. Arthur, an old widower struggling to overcome his grief, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who avoids school by hiding out where Arthur goes every day for lunch. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation.
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Sickly Sweet
- By Amazon Customer on 01-19-18
By: Elizabeth Berg
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Swear on This Life
- A Novel
- By: Renée Carlino
- Narrated by: Traci Odom
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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A struggling writer must come to terms with her past, present, and future after she discovers that she's the inspiration for a pseudonymously published best-selling novel.
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Outstanding Story!
- By Jen Seagraves on 07-28-20
By: Renée Carlino
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Marlena
- A Novel
- By: Julie Buntin
- Narrated by: Emma Galvin
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Everything about 15-year-old Cat's new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter until she meets her neighbor, the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. Cat, inexperienced and desperate for connection, is quickly lured into Marlena's orbit by little more than an arched eyebrow and a shake of white-blond hair. As the two girls turn the untamed landscape of their desolate small town into a kind of playground, Cat catalogues a litany of firsts - first drink, first cigarette, first kiss - while Marlena's habits harden and calcify.
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A Brilliant, Agonizing Portrait of a Young Woman
- By Sudi on 06-06-17
By: Julie Buntin
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The Mother Next Door
- A Novel of Suspense
- By: Tara Laskowski
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt, Teri Schnaubelt, Emily Lawrence
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The annual Halloween block party is the pinnacle of the year on idyllic suburban cul-de-sac Ivy Woods Drive. An influential group of neighborhood moms—known as the Ivy Five—plans the event for months. Except the Ivy Five has been four for a long time. When a new mother moves to town, eager to fit in, the moms see it as an opportunity to make the group whole again. This year's block party should be the best yet... until the women start receiving anonymous messages threatening to expose the quiet neighborhood's dark past—and the lengths they've gone to hide it.
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I Didn't Want It to End!
- By Sally on 10-16-21
By: Tara Laskowski
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The Charmer in Chaps
- By: Julia London
- Narrated by: Tieran Wilder
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Cimarron County knows the youngest son of the fabled Prince family as a womanizing hell-raiser, but Luca has changed, and he intends to prove it. There's just one problem - a woman with sparkling eyes and more fight than a barnyard cat. After a childhood of living in foster homes, Ella Kendall has exactly three things to her name: a dog, a pig, and the rundown house she just inherited. Luca may not remember her from high school, but she definitely remembers him. He is as seductive as he was then, but Ella isn't about to fall for his flirting.
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Very good - great imagery and sweet storyline with purpose
- By rhonda on 08-06-19
By: Julia London
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Where I'm Calling From
- Selected Stories
- By: Raymond Carver
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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By the time of his early death in 1988, Raymond Carver had established himself as one of the great practitioners of the American short story. Where I'm Calling From, his last collection, encompasses classic stories from Cathedral, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, and earlier Carver volumes, along with seven new works previously unpublished in book form.
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Love Carver, But Dietz Ruins It With Reading
- By Noirbat on 05-10-18
By: Raymond Carver
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Three-Fifths
- By: John Vercher
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Pittsburgh, 1995. The son of a black father he’s never known and a white mother he sometimes wishes he didn’t, 22-year-old Bobby Saraceno is passing for white. Raised by his bigoted maternal grandfather, Bobby has hidden his truth from everyone, even his best friend and fellow comic-book geek, Aaron, who has just returned home from prison a hardened racist.
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Good BUT not as good as it sounded
- By jaymie thomas on 12-13-19
By: John Vercher