This Must Be the Place Audiobook By Maggie O'Farrell cover art

This Must Be the Place

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This Must Be the Place

By: Maggie O'Farrell
Narrated by: Graham Rowat, Saskia Maarleveld
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About this listen

The dazzling new novel from best-selling, award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell, This Must Be the Place crosses time zones and continents to reveal an extraordinary portrait of a marriage.

Meet Daniel Sullivan, a man with a complicated life. A New Yorker living in the wilds of Ireland, he has children he never sees in California; a father he loathes in Brooklyn; and a wife, Claudette, who is a reclusive ex-film star given to shooting at anyone who ventures up their driveway. He is also about to find out something about a woman he lost touch with 20 years ago, and this discovery will send him off course, far away from wife and home. Will his love for Claudette be enough to bring him back?

This Must Be the Place crosses continents and time zones, giving voice to a diverse and complex cast of characters. At its heart it is an extraordinary portrait of a marriage, the forces that hold it together, and the pressures that drive it apart. Maggie O'Farrell's seventh novel is a dazzling, intimate epic about who we leave behind and who we become as we search for our place in the world.

©2016 Maggie O'Farrell (P)2016 Recorded Books
Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literature & Fiction Sagas Urban Marriage Heartfelt City

What listeners say about This Must Be the Place

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Not as good as others but still enjoyable.

Somewhat complicated family structure. I didn't warm to any of the characters. Attempts at voice changes by the narrator were not convincing.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

this must be the place

very good. but its 400 pages long so its 30 chapters and 14 hours of listening. even though like a book I did not want to stop listening and stayed up late to finish it. which of course I didn't. but if not paying attention closely you can get confused because the author jumps from past history of the characters to the present hence why 400 hundred pages. still a good book

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

This Must Be The Place

I liked how the author kept me hoping that Daniel and Claudette would end up together.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

The dedication of his son to him after years of not seeing each other.

I love Claudette’s character. Daniel was a little too wishy washy. I like how they went back and forth from Europe to America and how they went back in forth with time.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great characters… great writing

Not my favorite Maggie book but still very good! Lots of interesting characters you come to know well. Love, loss, pain: weaved into the story in an engaging tale.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

If this is your first Maggie O’Farrell book.. don’t give up on her yet!

I have a hard time believing that the same person who wrote Hamnet also wrote this. While Hamnet does start to drag after a certain major event takes place, the writing itself is so lovely that I didn’t really mind. The Marriage Portrait was also written with such eloquent and beautiful prose that I could hardly bear to stop listening!
When I saw this O’Farrell book was included in the plus catalog I immediately downloaded it, ready for another literary feast that never came. Right out of the gate this book felt awkward and disjointed for me, but I persisted in the optimistic expectation that Maggie O’Farrell would turn the ship around… she didn’t.
If this was my first book by the author, I can’t say I’d be willing to give her another chance. (I’ve read similarly dismal reviews about her book How to Survive a Heat Wave so I’ll probably skip that one too) Please do reserve judgement until after you’ve given Hamnet a listen (narrated by Ell Potter)

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Magnificent

Beautiful and deeply human story of life and the choices that form who we are

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Solid book

Solid book. Good story, good reader. The story is a little hard to follow time-wise, especially with all the POV and character changes, but I suspect that's an audiobook thing rather than a problem with the book itself. Give it time and it makes sense. I would definitely recommend.
Trigger warning: Eating disorder.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Great writing, weak story

I was drawn into this book by the rich language. But ended up feeling the book is not much more than a vehicle for O’Farrell’s writing. Premise of the story is weak, implausible. Come on, really?

The back and forth on dates and generations was tricky - might have been easier to follow if reading rather than listening. Performance of readers was uneven.

Do not recommend.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Loved the story, wished I would have read it

“This Must Be the Place” showcases Maggie O’Farrell’s talent of telling stories that follow complicated people, especially strong and interesting women. In this case, the woman in question is a “bony Botticelli” French blonde who aggressively wields a gun to protect her privacy. Her “default setting is overreaction and outrage.” She may seem a bit unhinged, but she has her reasons.

I’m getting ahead of myself. The story begins with Daniel Sullivan, an American Linguistics Professor who is in Ireland in an attempt to find his grandfather’s cremains in Ireland, and yes there Is a ridiculous reason Grampa’s remains are lost. Daniel happens upon a solitary little boy at the side of a desolate road. It’s that happenstance then, that he meets his bony Botticelli who is struggling to change a tire, the famous actress Claudette Wells.

O’Farrell writes the intricate love story of Daniel and Claudette. She provides the backstory of both characters which spans decades, countries, and many people. It sounds complicated, but O’Farrell drops hints of where she’s going with her storyline. She may tell you what will happen, but we need to read to learn the how and why. It meanders in the way life does. She provides differing POV’s and time frames all contributing to narrative of how improbably two totally unrelated people find each other in the course of their lives.

I listened to the audio, narrated by Graham Rowat and Saskia Maarleveld. This was a confusing audio for me because of all the jumping around. I required many rewinds. I wish I would have read it. It’s a 15 hour listen, and I think I spent 25 hours, with all the rewinds, listening. It’s a wonderful story and worthy of the time. It is worthy of a far longer and more detailed review. So much in this long epic story.

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