Wayward
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Susan Bennett
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By:
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Dana Spiotta
About this listen
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A “furious and addictive new novel” (The New York Times) about mothers and daughters, and one woman's midlife reckoning as she flees her suburban life.
“A virtuosic, singular and very funny portrait of a woman seeking sanity and purpose in a world gone mad.” (The New York Times Book Review)
“Riddled with insights into aging, womanhood, and discontent, Wayward is as elegant as it is raw, and almost as funny as it is sad.” (Philadelphia Inquirer)
“A comic, vital new novel.” (The New Yorker)
Samantha Raymond's life has begun to come apart: her mother is ill, her teenage daughter is increasingly remote, and at fifty-two she finds herself staring into "the Mids"—that hour of supreme wakefulness between three and four in the morning in which women of a certain age suddenly find themselves contemplating motherhood, mortality, and, in this case, the state of our unraveling nation.
When she falls in love with a beautiful, decrepit house in a hardscrabble neighborhood in Syracuse, she buys it on a whim and flees her suburban life—and her family—as she grapples with how to be a wife, a mother, and a daughter, in a country that is coming apart at the seams.
Dana Spiotta's Wayward is a stunning novel about aging, about the female body, and about female complexity in contemporary America. Probing and provocative, brainy and sensual, it is a testament to our weird times, to reforms and resistance and utopian wishes, and to the beauty of ruins.
©2021 Dana Spiotta (P)2021 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
A New York Times Critics' Top Book of the Year
One of the Best Books of the Year: New York Times, Washington Post, Vogue, The Guardian, and more
A Best Book of the Summer: USA Today, Town & Country, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Buzzfeed, Real Simple, The Millions, and more
“Furious and addictive.... Sam [is] an ideal guide, rash, funny, searching, entirely unpredictable, appalled at her own entitlement and ineffectuality—drawn with a kind of skeptical fondness.... So much contemporary fiction swims about in its own theories; what a pleasure to encounter not just ideas about the thing, but the thing itself—descriptions that irradiate the pleasure centers of the brain, a protagonist so densely, exuberantly imagined, she feels like a visitation.” (Parul Sehgal, The New York Times)
“Dana Spiotta is one of the most alert, ambitious, nuanced, and, yes, smartest of our contemporary novelists.... Spiotta’s novels, always rich with ideas and atmosphere, often focus on the arts.... Here, architecture connects to Wayward’s larger meditations about impermanence and decay—human, structural and even national.” (Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air)
“Thrilling...Spiotta’s novels are unfailingly dense with life—the textures, digressions, and details thereof—and Wayward is no exception. The novel is at once satirical and earnest: Sam asks what she can do to atone for her thoughtless privilege, what role she might play as an agent of change. There’s much comedy in the asking, but the novel makes clear that the answers aren’t straightforward. Spiotta offers grand themes and beautiful peripheral incidents...she writes with sly humor and utter seriousness; a rare articulation of midlife now. For this reader, there is uncommon pleasure in the paradoxes of this climacteric tale.” (Claire Messud, Harper’s Magazine)
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Chicago cartoonist Sarah Moon tackles life's real issues with a healthy dose of sharp wit in her syndicated comic strip Just Breathe. As Sarah's cartoon alter ego, Shirl, undergoes artificial insemination, her situation begins to mirror Sarah's own difficult attempts to conceive. However, Sarah's dreams of the future did not include her husband's infidelity: snag number two in Sarah's so-called perfect life.
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Predictable
- By TRACY on 02-11-09
By: Susan Wiggs
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Missing Parts
- By: Lucinda Berry
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Growing up abandoned by her father and raised by a single mother, Celeste was determined to create the perfect family - but even perfect families have secrets. Her days are filled with a rewarding career, a devoted husband, and her four-year-old daughter. Celeste is the only one who knows the precarious house of cards her family is built upon - until the day her daughter falls critically ill. Then her world quickly spirals out of control, her secret threatening to destroy her marriage, family, reputation, and sanity.
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SPOILER ALERT. Sigh...
- By Kelly on 10-08-20
By: Lucinda Berry
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He Came in with It
- A Portrait of Motherhood and Madness
- By: Miriam Feldman
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In an idyllic Los Angeles neighborhood, where generations enjoy deep roots in old homes, the O’Rourke family fits right in. Miriam and Craig are both artists and their four children carry on the legacy. When their teenage son, Nick, is diagnosed with schizophrenia, a tumultuous decade ensues in which the family careens off the conventional course. Like the 10 Biblical plagues, they are hit by one catastrophe after another: violence, evictions, arrests, a suicide attempt, a near-drowning - even cancer and a brain tumor - play against the backdrop of a wild teenage bacchanal.
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So Beautifully Written
- By Michael on 08-01-22
By: Miriam Feldman
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The McAvoy Sisters Book of Secrets
- A Novel
- By: Molly Fader
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
It’s been 17 years since the tragic summer the McAvoy sisters fell apart. Lindy, the wild one, left home, carved out a new life in the city, and never looked back. Delia, the sister who stayed, became a mother herself, raising her daughters and running the family shop in their small Ohio hometown on the shores of Lake Erie. But now, with their mother’s ailing health and a rebellious teenager to rein in, Delia has no choice but to welcome Lindy home.
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Great story
- By Nessa on 09-25-23
By: Molly Fader
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A Nail Through The Heart
- A Poke Rafferty Thriller
- By: Timothy Hallinan
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Poke Rafferty was writing offbeat travel guides for the young and terminally bored when Bangkok stole his heart. Now the American expat is assembling a new family with Rose, the former go-go dancer he wants to marry, and Miaow, the tiny, streetwise urchin he wants to adopt. But trouble in the guise of good intentions comes calling just when everything is beginning to work out.
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Ever been to Bangkok?
- By Richard Delman on 12-11-11
By: Timothy Hallinan
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Before You Knew My Name
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- By: Jacqueline Bublitz
- Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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When she arrived in New York on her eighteenth birthday carrying nothing but $600 cash and a stolen camera, Alice Lee was looking for a fresh start. Now, just one month later, she is the city’s latest Jane Doe. She may be dead but that doesn’t mean her story is over. Meanwhile, Ruby Jones is also trying to reinvent herself. After travelling halfway around the world, she’s lonelier than ever in the Big Apple. Until she stumbles upon a woman’s body by the Hudson River, and suddenly finds herself unbreakably tied to the unknown dead woman.
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Excellent
- By cristina on 11-11-22
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Lakewood
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- By: Megan Giddings
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Lena Johnson’s beloved grandmother dies, and the full extent of the family debt is revealed, the Black millennial drops out of college to support her family and takes a job in the mysterious and remote town of Lakewood, Michigan. On paper, her new job is too good to be true. High paying. No out of pocket medical expenses. A free place to live. All Lena has to do is participate in a secret program - and lie to her friends and family about the research being done in Lakewood.
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Fact or Fiction
- By Penda K on 06-09-20
By: Megan Giddings
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Scars and Stilettos - 2nd Edition
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Scars and Stilettos: At 13, after being abandoned by her mother one summer and left to take care of her younger brother, Harmony becomes susceptible to a relationship that turns out to be toxic, abusive, and ultimately exploitative. She eventually finds herself working in a strip club at the age of 19, and her boyfriend becomes her pimp, controlling her every move and taking all of her money. Ultimately, she discovers a path to freedom and a whole new life.
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A religious book
- By Amazonbuyer on 10-12-21
By: Harmony Dust
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Embassy Wife
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Persephone Wilder, a displaced genius posing as the wife of an American diplomat in Namibia, takes her job as a representative of her country seriously and comes up with an intricate set of rules to survive a range of problems: how to dress in hundred-degree weather without showing too much skin, how not to look drunk at embassy functions, and how to eat roasted oryx with grace. She also suspects her husband is not actually the ambassador’s general counsel but instead a secret agent in the CIA. She takes the new trailing spouse, Amanda Evans, under her wing....
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Have narrator re-record this book
- By Amazon Customer on 09-30-21
By: Katie Crouch
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My Body
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Emily Ratajkowski is an acclaimed model and actress, an engaged political progressive, a formidable entrepreneur, a global social media phenomenon, and now, a writer. Rocketing to world fame at age 21, Ratajkowski sparked both praise and furor with the provocative display of her body as an unapologetic statement of feminist empowerment. The subsequent evolution in her thinking about our culture’s commodification of women is the subject of this book.
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so vain..
- By Emily Valdez on 01-10-22
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Lay Your Sleeping Head
- The Henry Rios Mysteries, Book 1
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- Unabridged
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A completely revised edition of the first Henry Rios mystery, The Little Death, Lay Your Sleeping Head introduces Michael Nava’s singular protagonist, gay Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. Rios, beset by personal and professional problems, begins a passionate affair with the black sheep heir to a great California fortune who tells Rios an improbable tale of murder and sexual predation in his wealthy family. When the young man is found dead of an apparent drug overdose, Rios begins an investigation that ultimately reveals much more than murder.
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Loved It
- By Leah Brock on 06-20-20
By: Michael Nava
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Don't Look for Me
- A Novel
- By: Wendy Walker
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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One night, Molly Clarke walked away from her life. She doesn't want to be found. Or at least, that's the story. The car abandoned miles from home. The note found at a nearby hotel. The shattered family that couldn’t be put back together. They called it a “walk away.” It happens all the time. Women disappear, desperate to leave their lives behind and start over. But is that what really happened to Molly Clarke?
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Better than Gone Girl!
- By Kristen Harris on 09-17-20
By: Wendy Walker
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Something She's Not Telling Us
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Charlotte has everything in life that she ever could have hoped for: a doting, artistic husband, a small-but-thriving flower shop, and her sweet, smart five-year-old daughter, Daisy. Her relationship with her mother might be strained, but the distance between them helps. And her younger brother Rocco may have horrible taste in women, but when he introduces his new girlfriend to Charlotte and her family, they are cautiously optimistic that she could be The One. Daisy seems to love Ruth, and she can’t be any worse than the klepto Rocco brought home the last time.
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Should be "Something Almost Happened"
- By Kimberly Wasilewski on 05-03-20
By: Darcey Bell
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Fault Lines
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Mizuki is a Japanese housewife. She has a hardworking husband, two adorable children, and a beautiful Tokyo apartment. It’s everything a woman could want, yet sometimes she wonders whether she would rather throw herself off the high-rise balcony than spend another evening not talking to her husband and hanging up laundry.
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Confused by the choice of narrator
- By Bri T. on 02-13-22
By: Emily Itami
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What listeners say about Wayward
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sandy Collins
- 07-11-21
Interesting
If you are from Syracuse, you will love the many references to the city. I do wish the narrator had pronounced Nedrow and Colvin correctly. The mispronounced words were like chalk on a chalkboard to me. I did find the protagonist a bit grating. I felt like she was a bit spoiled and wanted to tell her to get a life. The book did keep my interest, however
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3 people found this helpful
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- Lynnea
- 07-18-21
Even better than I expected
I heard the author interviewed on NPR, and I was curious. I thought the book would be at least solid, and maybe even good.
But it was more. It really drew me in, very subtly. I was freaked out at first about the main character buying a house on impulse. What!?! Who DOES that? I didn’t quite trust the author to bring it all together. But she does!
One small moment of dissonance—the voices of two characters who are temperamentally very different sound almost identical in some places.
It is beautifully performed. The narrator’s voice is a perfect fit.
Yay team!
You produced something really beautiful.
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1 person found this helpful
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- snazzyvoice
- 11-02-23
Good if you like internal musings
The characters are super introspective and there are long musings about menopause and death. I’m in my 70’s and so these are probably appropriate for my age, but I found it all unappealing and did not relate well to the characters. That’s the reason for my mediocre review. I have a desperate need now to read some romance, mystery or other escapist lit.
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- Eric
- 09-18-21
Unusual, personal and powerful
A story that changes direction several times, about a mother entering menopause and her adolescent daughter coming into her sexuality. Draws you in gradually and beautifully. Narration most very good. Sometimes not perfect on the male voices but it is 90% female. Sweet, sharp and poignant.
I first heard about this book through NYTimes book review podcast.
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- Lauren Luzinski
- 08-24-21
From Syracuse - still fun
I’m from Syracuse and was curious how the City would come across in fiction. Happily the author wove the City into the story as such a great character that the magic of the book as fiction was not lost! Wonderful story telling, beautiful depiction of the good and bad of our city.
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- Jessica
- 01-17-22
Not my cup of tea
This book is well written, but overall I didn’t care for it. I don’t want to give any spoilers, so I will just say there is an event in the book that seems to come out of nowhere then disappear without conclusion or any attachment to the rest of the story that I could find. I also felt a disconnect from the characters’ emotions. I had trouble figuring out what, if anything, they were feeling a lot of the time. It’s
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- Photographer
- 12-13-21
an internal dialogue. a threadbare plot.
This book is mostly an internal dialogue, the voice of a middle aged woman, trying to find out what is ahead of her after her daughter is grown, her marriage is middle aged, and in which world she lives (a post 2017 world). a threadbare plot. The themes are dead-on, though.
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- Christina D
- 08-18-21
Good but a little pretentious at times
I really liked the narrator and the book. But there were times that the author went down some weird pretentious rabbit holes. All in all though I enjoyed the book.
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- Ela B.
- 08-27-22
Promising start but...
Promising start but this book seems unsure of what it wants to be or wants to say...commentary on recent politics, or crime, or social media...so it does all three and more, at the expense of character development. It also includes a historical set piece that appears at an odd time and too far from the original reference. Just seems like a conceit.The book needed a good editor but it is smart, well written and there were parts that will stay with me. I liked the biting, cynical tone of the main protagonist, Sam, but it might not be for everyone. It confronts menopause head on, and unapologetically, and that is refreshing. With all its flaws, it was nicely narrated and I enjoyed it enough to keep going to the end. If you're on the fence, get it.
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- Michael A. Hurd
- 08-04-21
characters likeability questioned throughout
I started to lose interest two-thirds in but slowly moved back to being interested in their stories/ lives.
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