Preview
  • Ways to Disappear

  • By: Idra Novey
  • Narrated by: Susan Hanfield
  • Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
  • 3.6 out of 5 stars (73 ratings)

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Ways to Disappear

By: Idra Novey
Narrated by: Susan Hanfield
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Publisher's summary

A debut novel about the disappearance of a famous Brazilian novelist and the young translator who turns her life upside down to follow her author's trail.

Deep in gambling debt, the celebrated Brazilian writer Beatriz Yagoda is last seen holding a suitcase and a cigar and climbing into an almond tree. She abruptly vanishes.

In snowy Pittsburgh, her American translator, Emma, hears the news and, against the wishes of her boyfriend and Beatriz's two grown children, flies immediately to Brazil. There, in the sticky, sugary heat of Rio, Emma and her author's children conspire to solve the mystery of Yagoda's curious disappearance and staunch the colorful demands of her various outstanding affairs: the rapacious loan shark with a zeal for severing body parts and the washed-up and disillusioned editor who launched Yagoda's career years earlier.

Idra Novey's exhilarating debut is an international romp: a madcap blend of mystery, romance, noir, and humor.

©2016 Idra Novey (P)2016 Hachette Audio
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Critic reviews

"With tremendous intelligence and wit, Ways to Disappear up-ends all the misleading memes about magical realism and in the process makes its own very real and unprecedented magic; this is a fantastic book." (Rivka Galchen)
" Ways to Disappear centers on the complicated and mysterious relationship between author and text and reader and writer. Idra Novey has given us a first rate novel of ideas, a book that is also funny, poignant, and profound." (Darcey Steinke)
"I fell immediately under the spell of this short, strange, glorious novel. When Beatriz Yagoda, famous writer, international treasure, and mother of two, disappears into a tree in Copacabana and takes an arboreal leave of absence from the world, her worried translator, Emma, takes it upon herself to track Beatriz down. In addition to being a sui generis detective story, Emma's quest to find her author is also a metaphysical journey along the fluid coastlines of life and art. Novey gives us a kaleidoscopic vision of a full universe and of her character's devious hearts." (Karen Russell)

What listeners say about Ways to Disappear

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unique writing style and mystery

wow. What a book! Just finished listening to ways to disappear. chapters are broken down into such small segments that there are about 70 chapters lol. that plus some other writing styles I've never seen before really made it for an interesting listen. informative, funny, and captivating! I was sitting in my driveway listening do it for 15 minutes after I got home! Highly recommend.

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    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting, if somewhat rushed, story

This book was interesting enough...the story was good, with lots of twists and turns...but I found it rushed and somewhat harried because of that. I'm usually a proponent of good editing, but in this case I could have used a bit more to this story...it seemed like we got from beginning to end without enough explanation of what came in between.

Beautifully written and narrated and overall thoughtful story...just wanted more.

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