
Those We Thought We Knew
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Narrated by:
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MacLeod Andrews
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By:
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David Joy
Winner of the 2023 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction
Winner of the 2023 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award
Winner of the 2024 Sir Walter Raleigh Award
One of Vanity Fair’s Favorite Books of 2023
“A beautifully fearless contemplation.”–S. A. Cosby
From award-winning writer David Joy comes a searing new novel about the cracks that form in a small North Carolina community and the evils that unfurl from its center.
Toya Gardner, a young Black artist from Atlanta, has returned to her ancestral home in the North Carolina mountains to trace her family history and complete her graduate thesis. But when she encounters a still-standing Confederate monument in the heart of town, she sets her sights on something bigger.
Meanwhile, local deputies find a man sleeping in the back of a station wagon and believe him to be nothing more than some slack-jawed drifter. Yet a search of the man’s vehicle reveals that he is a high-ranking member of the Klan, and the uncovering of a notebook filled with local names threatens to turn the mountain on end.
After two horrific crimes split the county apart, every soul must wrestle with deep and unspoken secrets that stretch back for generations. Those We Thought We Knew is an urgent unraveling of the dark underbelly of a community. Richly drawn and bracingly honest, it asks what happens when the people you’ve always known turn out to be monsters, what do you do when everything you ever believed crumbles away?
©2023 David Joy (P)2023 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
One of:
Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Best Southern Books of 2023
Garden & Gun’s Best Books for (and About) Southerners of 2023
BookRiot’s 10 Best Appalachian Books of 2023
CrimeReads's Most Anticipated Crime Fiction of Summer 2023
"[David Joy] is a man who sees his homeplace clearly and who writes like his hand was touched by God." —The New York Times
"[A] bracing novel…both a murder mystery and a deeply intimate story of generational relationships and loss." —Vanity Fair
"A refreshing departure…Joy has a knack for heightening intrigue…. He’s like a magician playing a shell game, and it’s an effective way to keep readers on their toes. The book is filled with gorgeous prose, particularly when Joy turns his considerable talents toward descriptions of the natural world." —Atlanta Journal Constitution
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Macleod Andrews narration brings this book and its characters to life in a way that is hard to explain. He could bring depth and profundity to a buzzfeed listicle.
Good book
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Beautiful Book
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So glad David Joy writes
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Amazing
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Joy does it AGAIN
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Powerful, authentic, beautifully written...
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Wow!!
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I Couldn't Put Down My Ears....
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A re-examined life
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So very believable I thought it was historical fiction
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