The Widower's Tale
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Mark Bramhall
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By:
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Julia Glass
About this listen
In a historic farmhouse outside Boston, 70-year-old Percy Darling is settling happily into retirement: Reading novels, watching old movies, and swimming naked in his pond. His routines are disrupted, however, when he is persuaded to let a locally beloved preschool take over his barn. As Percy sees his rural refuge overrun by children, parents, and teachers, he must reexamine the solitary life he has made in the three decades since the sudden death of his wife. No longer can he remain aloof from his community, his two grown daughters, or, to his shock, the precarious joy of falling in love.
One relationship Percy treasures is the bond with his oldest grandchild, Robert, a premed student at Harvard. Robert has long assumed he will follow in the footsteps of his mother, a prominent physician, but he begins to question his ambitions when confronted by a charismatic roommate who preaches - and begins to practice - an extreme form of ecological activism, targeting Boston’s most affluent suburbs. Meanwhile, two other men become fatefully involved with Percy and Robert: Ira, a gay teacher at the preschool, and Celestino, a Guatemalan gardener who works for Percy’s neighbor, each one striving to overcome a sense of personal exile.
Choices made by all four men, as well as by the women around them, collide forcefully on one lovely spring evening, upending everyone’s lives, but none more radically than Percy’s. With equal parts affection and satire, Julia Glass spins a captivating tale about the loyalties, rivalries, and secrets of a very particular family. Yet again, she plumbs the human heart brilliantly, dramatically, and movingly.
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In the wake of his wife's murder, agent Grady Shields turned his back on the FBI - and everything else-to retreat into the vast solitude of Montana, grieve for his lost love, and forget the world. But after years in seclusion, his sister's wedding draws him to St. Dennis, a peaceful town on the Chesapeake Bay. Though he swears he isn't interested in finding love again, Grady can't ignore the mutual sparks that fly when he meets Vanessa Keaton.
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Graet New Series from Audible
- By casey on 08-25-12
By: Mariah Stewart
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To See the Moon Again
- By: Jamie Langston Turner
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The first step to letting go of the past is forgiving it …Every day of her life Julia Rich lives with the memory of a horrible accident she caused long ago. In the years since, she has tried to hide her guilt in the quiet routine of teaching at a small South Carolina college, avoiding close relationships with family and would-be friends. But one day a phone call from Carmen, a niece she has never met, disrupts her carefully controlled world.
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Beautiful Story of Forgiveness and Selfless Love
- By sharon on 09-20-14
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The Quilter's Apprentice
- Elm Creek Quilts, Book 1
- By: Jennifer Chiaverini
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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An engaging tale full of warmth and wisdom, The Quilter’s Apprentice is the first novel in best-selling author Jennifer Chiaverini’s Elm Creek Quilts series. Sarah McClure takes a job helping elderly Sylvia Compson prepare her family estate for sale. Sylvia, a master quilter, agrees to share the tricks of the trade with Sarah. As the two women grow close, Sylvia shares her family’s tragic past, compelling Sarah to look at her own life more closely.
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A Mixed Bag
- By Potato Potato on 09-19-13
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After the Parade
- By: Lori Ostlund
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Sensitive, big-hearted, and achingly self-conscious, 40-year-old Aaron Englund long ago escaped the confines of his Midwestern hometown, but he still feels like an outcast. After 20 years under the Pygmalion-like direction of his older partner, Walter, Aaron at last decides it is time to stop letting life happen to him and to take control of his own fate.
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Narrator
- By Barbara on 11-10-24
By: Lori Ostlund
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I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This
- A Memoir
- By: Nadja Spiegelman
- Narrated by: Nadja Spiegelman
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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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
- By Haley Abreu on 07-05-17
By: Nadja Spiegelman
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Love Walked In
- By: Marisa de los Santos
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning poet Marisa de los Santos crafts an irresistibly touching debut novel. Love Walked In is a contemporary tale, steeped in nostalgic, cinematic charm, of love in all its forms. Unapologetically idealistic about love, Cornelia Brown appears to catch the break of a lifetime when the dashing Martin Grace, her own personal Cary Grant, comes strolling into her life. But it is Martin's connection to 11-year-old Clare Hobbes that touches Cornelia's heart in ways she never imagined.
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Dreadful audio quality
- By Marenghi on 09-16-11
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The Opposite of Loneliness
- Essays and Stories
- By: Marina Keegan
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Marina Keegan's star was on the rise when she graduated magna cum laude from Yale in May 2012. She had a play that was to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at the New Yorker. Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash. Even though she was just 22 when she died, Marina left behind a rich, expansive trove of prose that, like her title essay, captures the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of her generation.
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Probably buy the book too.
- By Soupergirl on 09-14-15
By: Marina Keegan
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Don't Scream
- By: Wendy Corsi Staub
- Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In a remote, heavily wooded area near the Berkshires of Massachusetts, Rachel Lorant died on her birthday. But she didn't die alone. That night, her four sorority sisters make a solemn, trembling pledge. They will never reveal what has just happened in those woods - ever. Instead, they will take their terrible secret to their graves.
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Who cares?
- By Tara on 11-14-14
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Garden Spells
- By: Sarah Addison Allen
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers.
Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures.
Together again in the house they grew up in, the Waverley sisters realize they must deal with their common legacy - if they are ever to feel at home in Bascom - or with each other.
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I so want to give it 5 stars...!!!!
- By Joihelene on 10-09-10
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Secrets of the Lost Summer
- By: Carla Neggers
- Narrated by: Susan Boyce
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Neggers ( The Whisper) spins a tale of stolen jewels, long-lost love, and other secrets in this engaging contemporary romance. Olivia Frost has returned to Knights Bridge, Mass., to turn a historic home into a getaway destination. A neighboring house is in disarray, so Olivia writes to the owner, Dylan McCaffrey, asking him to clean it up. Dylan has no idea his late father left him the property until he gets Olivia’s note. Curious, he travels to Knights Bridge, where he and Olivia hit it off....
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Feminist Grade:A
- By Liana on 01-21-19
By: Carla Neggers
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
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Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
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Summer at Willow Lake
- The Lakeshore Chronicles, Book 1
- By: Susan Wiggs
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Real estate expert Olivia Bellamy reluctantly trades a trendy Manhattan summer for her family's old resort camp in the Catskills, where her primary task will be renovating the bungalow colony for her grandparents, who want one last summer together filled with fun, friends and family. A posh resort in its heyday, the camp is now in disarray and Olivia is forced to hire contractor Connor Davis - a still-smoldering flame from her own summers at camp.
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Finding Love at Summer Camp
- By Pamela Dale Foster on 02-13-15
By: Susan Wiggs
What listeners say about The Widower's Tale
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- MC
- 03-01-19
beautiful
beautifully written. enjoyed from start to finish! great narration, also. you could feel the different characters.
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- SwissAmerican
- 05-15-20
The Main Character Makes The Book
This book is told from the perspective of four different characters, all men. The main character, a crusty widower, is absolutely marvelous. It’s also where the narrator finds his strongest voice.
Interestingly enough, I felt that Ira, the gay man, what is the least interesting character in the book. This is a little odd, because Julia Glass previously created really compelling portraits of gay men.
I’ve enjoyed all of her novels so far, and this is no exception. Her storytelling, characters, and especially her evoking the landscape and culture of wealthy suburban Massachusetts are vivid and engaging. It’s the kind of intelligent look at other peoples lives that I enjoy.
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Overall
- Dennis
- 09-16-10
Taler Made
Julia Glass spins a tale of life in a small New England town that draws the listener into the life of Percy Darling, the eponymous widower, and his attempt to recover from his wife's death thirty years ago. Glass's insights into a senior citizen, his children, extended family, friends and acquaintances make each character real, i.e., flawed but sympathetic. There are neither heroes nor villains, yet, just as we hope we can, the characters muddle though life wiser for the experience.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Louise E. Terpstra
- 08-17-22
Loved this book!
Characters are well developed, the plot holds you to the end. Full of compassion and love.
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- Minneapolis listener
- 03-06-22
Writing is good enough…
The book is just 7 hours and 6-10 characters too LONG and too MUCH.
Besides that, the writer spends so much time on her political agenda that endearing things, meaningful things, like Celestino’s reaction to seeing his lover again are nearly lost. We KNOW she is rich compared to him!
In fact that agenda is hammered so hard that it, not Percy, nor Robert, is the main character in the book, if you can let go of your peevishness at Percy warbling “Daaaaugh-ter…” down the driveway.
Mr. Ira and his partner were a beautifully written couple as was the emotionally practical Sarah. As I said, the writing in most places was good.
However, re Trudy, I am exhausted with hero doctors/lawyers/politicians/police/PIs who are too busy to breathe from both nostrils because they are using one to sleep. That trope was old with Frank Furillo on Hill Street Blues.
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- Patricia
- 04-27-12
A Certain Kind of Maturity
I throughly enjoyed Julia Glasses "The Widower's Tale," but, then again, I am of a certain age.
Mark Bramhall was the perfect, slow, almost drawling voice of an older man, but far from boring. He made Percy Darling jump to life with his gently sardonic wit, and insightful self deprecations.
The book was a little slow going at times, and its punches were slow to build rather than a constant bombardment of action, but I think it was well worth the listen.
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Overall
- Susan C. S.
- 11-09-10
Baffling choice by the Narrator.
I can't understand why the narrator chose to portray the main character in the voice of an extremely elderly man with a stereotypical Boston Brahmin accent. The man is actually 71 years old and specifically mentions that he grew up in a bookish household in Montclair New Jersey. This choice skews the entire narrative and makes the central character almost comically flat. He's not a character, but a caricature, one invented not by the author, but by the Narrator. Too bad.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Diana Villalobos
- 07-14-16
Great!
great story and fantastic writing; very interesting characters and the narration was perfect loved it
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- Jon
- 11-03-10
Great performance, great writing, wonderful story
This was not a reading - it was a performance! Mark Bramhall had incredible accents and emotions that add to an already wonderfully written book. This is a must listen!
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11 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Kathryn Walker
- 12-23-10
Loved it
Julia Glass has written another novel in which I could lose myself. I loved and cared about the characters and the story kept my attention from start to finish. Mark Bramhall's narration is brilliant! He clearly delineates each character and emotions come through without being overly done.
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3 people found this helpful