We Are Not Ourselves
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Narrated by:
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Mare Winningham
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By:
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Matthew Thomas
About this listen
Destined to be a classic, this "powerfully moving" (Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding) multigenerational debut novel of an Irish-American family is nothing short of a "masterwork". (Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End).
Born in 1941, Eileen Tumulty is raised by her Irish immigrant parents in Woodside, Queens, in an apartment where the mood swings between heartbreak and hilarity, depending on whether guests are over and how much alcohol has been consumed.
When Eileen meets Ed Leary, a scientist whose bearing is nothing like those of the men she grew up with, she thinks she’s found the perfect partner to deliver her to the cosmopolitan world she longs to inhabit. They marry, and Eileen quickly discovers Ed doesn’t aspire to the same, ever bigger, stakes in the American Dream.
Eileen encourages her husband to want more: a better job, better friends, a better house, but as years pass it becomes clear that his growing reluctance is part of a deeper psychological shift. An inescapable darkness enters their lives, and Eileen and Ed and their son, Connell, try desperately to hold together a semblance of the reality they have known, and to preserve, against long odds, an idea they have cherished of the future.
Through the Learys, novelist Matthew Thomas charts the story of the American Century, particularly the promise of domestic bliss and economic prosperity that captured hearts and minds after WWII. The result is a riveting and affecting work of art; one that reminds us that life is more than a tally of victories and defeats, that we live to love and be loved, and that we should tell one another so before the moment slips away.
Epic in scope, heroic in character, masterful in prose, We Are Not Ourselves heralds the arrival of a major new talent in contemporary fiction.
©2014 Matthew Thomas (P)2014 Simon & SchusterListeners also enjoyed...
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True biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history finals, and have politicians, doctors, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges listeners into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they’ll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who’s never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school’s golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the hearing headmistress.
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A good story with added features both intriguing and informational
- By A Signing Mom on 05-15-22
By: Sara Novic
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Tryin' To Sleep In the Bed You Made
- By: Virginia DeBerry, Donna Grant
- Narrated by: Fran L. Washington
- Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Gayle was the beauty who believed that a man could make her life complete. Patricia was the intellectual who thought that rising to the top of her career would make her happy. And then there is Marcus Carter, who has been linked to both Gayle and Pat since the tragedy that occurred when they were all children. Can either one save him from himself? Can friends survive a love that comes between them? Each of them gets what she wants, but no one counts on the price they have to pay.
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Better with each chapter!
- By Cyn B. on 02-09-16
By: Virginia DeBerry, and others
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Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See
- By: Juliann Garey
- Narrated by: Dan Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In her tour-de-force first novel, Juliann Garey takes us inside the restless mind, ravaged heart, and anguished soul of Greyson Todd, a successful Hollywood studio executive who leaves his wife and young daughter and for a decade travels the world giving free reign to the bipolar disorder he's been forced to keep hidden for almost 20 years.
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Psychosis or Syphilis?
- By Vira on 04-02-13
By: Juliann Garey
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The Wrong Sister
- By: T. E. Woods
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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From behind the wheel of her car, Tess Kincaid glimpses a woman walking down a Madison, Wisconsin, street. They've never met, but Tess sees the same features every time she looks in the mirror. Tess introduces herself and discovers that she and her doppelganger, Mimi, have more than appearance in common. They even share the same birthday. Mimi - confident and outgoing where Tess is understated and shy - is convinced they're twins, separated shortly after birth. When a body is discovered in a local marsh, Tess is entangled in a search for the truth....
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Nothing like anything T E Woods has written B4!!!
- By shelley on 03-01-18
By: T. E. Woods
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Lifted by the Great Nothing
- By: Karim Dimechkie
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Max doesn't remember his mother, who was murdered by burglars before they emigrated from Beirut to New Jersey. He lives with his father, Rasheed, who is enamored of his concept of American culture - baseball and barbeques - and tries to shed his Lebanese heritage completely.
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Excellent
- By Cheyenne on 06-13-15
By: Karim Dimechkie
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Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
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Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
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One Amazing Thing
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Purva Bedi, Soneela Nankani, Neil Shah
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of a Pushcart Prize for poetry and an American Book Award for her short stories, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores themes of women, immigration, and her vibrant Indian culture to great effect. Divakaruni expands on these ideas in One Amazing Thing, a project long in the making and full of electric prose.
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An ok way to kill some time
- By R.Reader on 11-07-12
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Bullet in the Brain
- By: Tobias Wolff
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Anders is an angry, cynical man. A book critic known for his scathing reviews, he finds any excuse to dismiss, belittle, or insult. This afternoon is no more agitating than the next. Angers finds himself in a long line at the bank, waiting to reach a teller. Even after two men - wearing masks and carrying guns - take control of the building, Anders is unfazed. It's this behavior that lands him with a pistol against his stomach and a man screamingin his face. And when the bank robber, indignant over Anders' behavior, shoots the book critic in the head, his mind floats through the memories of his life, settling on one particular event....
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The Perfect Example
- By Sarah on 08-01-17
By: Tobias Wolff
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Saints for All Occasions
- A Novel
- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
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The narration ruined it
- By Janis Reynolds on 06-12-17
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Notes on a Banana
- A Memoir of Food, Love, and Manic Depression
- By: David Leite
- Narrated by: David Leite
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Reminiscing about the people and events that shaped him, David looks back at the highs and lows of his life, from his rejection of being gay and his attempt to "turn straight" through Aesthetic Realism, a cult in downtown Manhattan, to becoming a writer, cookbook author, and web publisher, to his 23-year relationship with Alan, known to millions of David's readers and listeners as "The One", which began with (what else?) food.
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Finished it in a day!
- By Kathryn on 08-23-17
By: David Leite
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The Rest of Her Life
- By: Laura Moriarty
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Leigh is the mother of high-achieving, popular high school senior Kara. Their relationship is already strained for reasons Leigh does not fully understand when, in a moment of carelessness, Kara makes a mistake that ends in tragedy, the effects of which not only divide Leigh's family, but polarize the entire community.
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Obnoxious musical interludes ruin the story
- By Joan on 12-25-11
By: Laura Moriarty
What listeners say about We Are Not Ourselves
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Paula
- 11-29-14
Profound Narrative of FantisizingTragedy, Regret
In this narrative story, there is no great mystery to resolve, no thrilling moments of climax. If these are things you need in a story, don't select this one. However, if you enjoy life stories and how the characters in these stories chart the direction of their lives, this is one you won't want to miss. Matthew Thomas has written a really good novel.
This is a narrative (well performed by Mare Winningham) about a girl who works hard, has many life challenges and fantasizes about her future. As a woman, she cannot seem to stop the fantasizing about what might be in order to enjoy her present life. She is perpetually seeking perfection, or more, or different than she has in the moment; from her husband, son, neighbors, employers, friends. Eileen Leary cannot just live for the moment, enjoy the moment, and relish what is present instead of wishing for what might be. In the end, she has regrets. Many, many regrets. In the end, these things shape the future life of her son.
Thomas' writing exposes us to how this obsession with "what might be" can shape lives and outlooks on life. Perhaps it is a life lesson neatly presented to us as "We Are Not Ourselves."
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19 people found this helpful
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- onlineshopper
- 01-05-15
i never wanted it to end
If you could sum up We Are Not Ourselves in three words, what would they be?
very thought provoking
Who was your favorite character and why?
Eileen. Her strength in all situations, having to grow up so quickly, her work ethic, her perseverance.
Have you listened to any of Mare Winningham’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
Not that I can rememember.
Who was the most memorable character of We Are Not Ourselves and why?
Ed...his descent into losing his memory.
Any additional comments?
I have listened and read so very many books in this last year and I cant remember one that has stayed with me as long as this one has.
(Spoiler alert)The topic of Alzheimers is interesting to me as I am aging, and those around me are dealing with it within their families. But, it wasn't just that. It was the family dynamic between the main character Eileen, her husband Ed, and her son Collen(spelling?).
This book is so well written. As you enter the world of each character through the author's telling, and then hear about it, in the same way through another characters interpretation of the same- you realize, or at least remember, how different everyone's experience is in a family.
We are Not Ourselves follows the life of a woman and man, through their ups and downs, and their disappointments with each other. They have a boy, and they extend those circumstances as we all do in the raising of this child.
Before the characters in the story do, we begin to realize that something is wrong with Ed, and, well...that it is his mind--this most cherished part of his intellectual life.
What follows is such in incredible narrative of his descent, and the effect it has on all who surround him.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Kara
- 05-17-19
Plot good, dragged on....
Good story, would have been better if it was half the length. very hard to keep interest with so little plot.
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- Patrick
- 05-12-23
Fantastic
I wish the author would write another book. I hope he’s well. This is a masterpiece.
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- W Perry Hall
- 02-12-15
Somber, Poignant Novel on Timely Topic
An elegiac novel to a committed wife/mother whose husband suffers early onset Alzheimer's. I could relate to her pain and loneliness as all the past and passion slowly slipped away and found particularly poignant her coping with the loss of her dreams of a dashing, successful professor husband with a beautiful home in the perfect suburb.
A pure work of artistry in development of the characters of the wife, the husband and their son. My one complaint: it is a bit slow.
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5 people found this helpful
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- kathleen phillips
- 08-12-15
Exceptional
Loved the story as well as the narration. I will listen to this one again.
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-27-16
Dreary Main Character/Hard to Care
Would you try another book from Matthew Thomas and/or Mare Winningham?
No, Matthew Thomas bored me throughout most of the book. He forgets about secondary characters for long stretches, then they reappear. Events unfold and then drift away, never having a resolution. Relationships aren't mentioned and then suddenly they're supposed to be important to the main character. The main character, Eileen, is snobbish and unpleasant most of the time. Mare Winningham's dreary reading of the book matches Eileen's personality band that doesn't make it any easier to take.
What was most disappointing about Matthew Thomas’s story?
Worst of all, for endless chapters of the book, Eileen, who is a nurse, remains clueless about the fact that her husband has a major issue that she should have picking up on. I could have diagnosed the illness months or years faster than she does, if it were my husband.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Mare Winningham?
Anyone besides the super annoying Brene Brown.
If this book were a movie would you go see it?
No
Any additional comments?
This book needed a better editor. There's nothing "epic" about dragging a story out forever.
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- Ole Andreasen
- 10-25-17
Lives... Big and small. I enjoyed it to the full.
21 hours of life - and death. Success and defeat. Ups and downs... Life.
Beautifully written by Matthew Thomas, and wonderfully read by Mare Winningham.
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- Jean
- 04-12-16
Very depressing
It probably was a very good book. Well written. However, I couldn't help to notice that every time I would listen to it a darkness, a sadness, came over me. Maybe this is what the author wanted. If so, than it was a success.
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- Gail
- 01-06-15
Engaging What Is
This is a wonderful story full of realism and a role model of relationship & engaging while clinging to self-preservation as a caregiver of several family elders with dementia.
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1 person found this helpful