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Wild Child
- And Other Stories
- Narrated by: T. C. Boyle
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
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Publisher's summary
In the title story of this rich new collection, T.C. Boyle has created so vivid and original a retelling of the story of Victor, the feral boy who was captured running naked through the forests of Napoleonic France, that it becomes not just new, but definitive: yes, this is how it must have been. The tale is by turns magical and moving, a powerful investigation of what it means to be human. There is perhaps no one better than T. C. Boyle at engaging, shocking, and ultimately gratifying his readers while at the same time testing his characters' emotional and physical endurance.
The 14 stories gathered here display both Boyle's astonishing range and his imaginative muscle. Nature is the dominant player in many of these stories, whether in the form of the catastrophic mudslide that allows a cynic to reclaim his own humanity ("La Conchita") or the wind-driven fires that howl through a high California canyon ("Ash Monday"). Other tales range from the drama of a man who spins Homeric lies in order to stop going to work, to that of a young woman who must babysit for a $250,000 cloned Afghan and the sad comedy of a child born to Mexican street vendors who is unable to feel pain. Brilliant, incisive, and always entertaining, Boyle's short stories showcase the mischievous humor and socially conscious sensibility that have made him one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.
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Editorial reviews
T. C. Boyle missed his calling as a stand-up comedian or perhaps a first-rate dramatic actor. Because when Boyle reads, you listen. Hearing the award-winning novelist perform his latest collection of short stories, Wild Child, brings out the lyrical quality of Boyle’s writing. His timing is perfect. So is his tone. Boyle’s staccato, precise voice perfectly captures the rhythm of his writing and the often manic, possessed nature of many characters in Wild Child.
That sense of urgency comes through clearly in the stunning title story, which stands out as one of the best short stories of the decade. The long, multi-part story could easily be considered a novella on par with Herman Melville’s Billy Budd or Bartleby, the Scrivener. Boyle’s fictional tale describes in vivid detail the true story of Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron, who was discovered living in the woods in France in 1797. Boyle imagines what the boy’s life must have been like and the Herculean efforts of Dr. Jean-Marc Gaspard itard to assimilate Victor back into society. Like itard, Boyle approaches his subject with a clinical yet tender eye. Boyle manages to be sensitive towards his characters without being sentimental.
Boyle displays this same unsentimental sensitivity in the other stories of Wild Child, showcasing his uncanny ability to paint portraits so real, the imaginary characters and sometimes far-fetched scenarios feel completely plausible. Other stories that stand out in this stellar collection include “La Concita”, about one man’s heroic efforts to deliver a donated liver to a hospital; “Sin Dolor”, about a Mexican child who feels no pain; and “Admiral”, about a couple’s efforts to perfectly recreate the same environment for their cloned dog, right down to hiring the same woman to dog-sit the new animal. Humorous, insightful, nostalgic, slightly absurd these 14 stories illustrate Boyle at his best. Ken Ross
Critic reviews
Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2010
“Superlative author T.C. Boyle is also an excellent reader of his own work. His voice is purely American West - flat-voweled, pleasantly modulated, with a hint of a baritone growl. He reads without vocal flourish, but with an intensity that captures the listener and won't let go. It's pell-mell without being rushed; urgent but not desperate; entirely articulate. And such stories... This is a mesmerizing audiobook experience.” (AudioFile)
"One of the most inventive and verbally exuberant writers of his generation." (New York Times)
"Boyle is a marvel at descriptive prose." (Washington Post Book World)
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By: Neil Gaiman - author/editor, and others
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Arcadia
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Lauren Groff’s acclaimed debut novel The Monsters of Templeton was short-listed for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, Arcadia opens in the late 1960s with a group of young idealists forming a commune in western New York State. Into this group is born Bit, who grows into a quiet, distant man. Over the course of 50 years, Bit witnesses the utopia crumble and the world change in unimaginable ways.
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Luscious prose, intimate and realistic
- By Kathleen on 03-22-12
By: Lauren Groff
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Her Body and Other Parties
- Stories
- By: Carmen Maria Machado
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.
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Beautiful
- By Anonymous User on 11-17-17
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Our Story Begins
- New and Selected Stories
- By: Tobias Wolff
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Wolff here returns with fresh revelations - about biding one's time, or experiencing first love, or burying one's mother - that come to a variety of characters in circumstances at once everyday and extraordinary. A retired Marine enrolls in college while her son trains for Iraq. A lawyer takes a difficult deposition. An American in Rome indulges the Gypsy who's picked his pocket.
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Great
- By chris on 04-11-08
By: Tobias Wolff
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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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The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
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Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
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The Fireman
- A Novel
- By: Joe Hill
- Narrated by: Kate Mulgrew
- Length: 22 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it's Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies - before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.
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GOD'S WAITING ROOM; AKA FLORIDA
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 04-25-17
By: Joe Hill
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
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Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
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The Yiddish Policemen's Union
- A Novel
- By: Michael Chabon
- Narrated by: Peter Riegert
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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For 60 years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the federal district of Sitka, a temporary safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the district is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end.
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Didn't finish...
- By Ann E O'Connor on 10-16-17
By: Michael Chabon
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Battleborn
- By: Claire Vaye Watkins
- Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Morgan Hallett, Laura Knight Keating, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Like the work of Cormac McCarthy, Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, and Annie Proulx, Battleborn represents a near-perfect confluence of sensibility and setting, and the introduction of an exceptionally powerful and original literary voice. In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it.
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Wonderful magnificent stories beautifully told
- By Pedro Ramirez on 12-03-15
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Hemlock Grove
- or, The Wise Wolf
- By: Brian McGreevy
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The body of a young girl is found mangled and murdered in the woods of Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania, in the shadow of the abandoned Godfrey Steel Mill. A manhunt ensues - though the authorities aren’t sure if it's a man they should be looking for.
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Very similar to the TV show
- By Erin on 01-01-14
By: Brian McGreevy
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Wonder Boys
- By: Michael Chabon
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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A wildly successful first novel made Grady Tripp a young star, and seven years later he still hasn't grown up. He's now a writing professor in Pittsburgh, plummeting through middle age, stuck with an unfinishable manuscript, an estranged wife, a pregnant girlfriend, and a talented but deeply disturbed student named James Leer.
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A strong, early Chabon (sounds like grading wine)
- By Darwin8u on 03-09-14
By: Michael Chabon
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Shadow Show
- All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury
- By: Sam Weller - editor, Mort Castle - editor
- Narrated by: George Takei, Edward Herrmann, Kate Mulgrew, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Ray Bradbury - peerless storyteller, poet of the impossible, and one of America's most beloved authors - is a literary giant whose remarkable career spanned seven decades. Now 26 of today's most diverse and celebrated authors offer new short works in honor of the master; stories of heart, intelligence, and dark wonder from a remarkable range of creative artists.
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THE MAN WHO FORGOT RAY BRADBURY
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 05-27-17
By: Sam Weller - editor, and others
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Fourth of July Creek
- A Novel
- By: Smith Henderson
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, Jenna Lamia
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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After trying to help Benjamin Pearl, an undernourished, nearly feral 11-year-old boy living in the Montana wilderness, social worker Pete Snow comes face-to-face with the boy's profoundly disturbed father, Jeremiah. With courage and caution, Pete slowly earns a measure of trust from this paranoid survivalist itching for a final conflict that will signal the coming End Times. But as Pete's own family spins out of control, Pearl's activities spark the full-blown interest of the FBI, putting Pete at the center of a massive manhunt from which no one will emerge unscathed.
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The Ghost of Tom Joad & the Wrath of Grapes
- By Mel on 06-30-14
By: Smith Henderson
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How Like a God
- By: Brenda W. Clough
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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What would it be like, to get absolute power? Would you wear a cape and fight crime? Rule the planet? Or perhaps you would be like Rob Lewis, and watch your world collapse around you. Does absolute power corrupt absolutely? Rob is going to find out.
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At one point the main character rapes at 13 year old girl
- By Richard Davis on 05-29-21
By: Brenda W. Clough
What listeners say about Wild Child
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Rebecca
- 12-14-12
Not sure which way to tip the scale...
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
Listening to a well written novel is never a waste of time. Some stories were more interesting than others but you can't deny Boyle is an artist with words.
Who was your favorite character and why?
The gentleman from "The Lie" was by far my favorite character. Everyone wants to escape but very few of us have the balls or ability to try, lol. His childish antics were morbid yet hilarious.
What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?
I found the narrator well suited to these stories. There were a few times where I felt confused because the transition from story to story was too abrupt. I think the pause between them should have been longer.
Could you see Wild Child being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
I could definitely see the one story "Wild Child" being turned into a movie ;)
Any additional comments?
This isn't an easy read. Many of the stories end when you least expect them to. I found myself wanting more and feeling somewhat depressed. A lot of time is spent on everyday activities with very little embellishment or luxury. These stories are raw and realistic so don't read them if you're looking for a feel good novel. I appreciate an author who can evoke emotions from their readers and thoroughly enjoyed this book.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Nicole
- 05-09-13
PRETTY GOOD
Any additional comments?
A little boring at parts, but I would recommend the book, if you are interested in this sort of genre.
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Overall
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Performance
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- HG
- 12-18-12
Fans of short stories will enjoy this.
What made the experience of listening to Wild Child the most enjoyable?
Well narrated, intelligent and entertaining - all except for "Wild Child" which was the last and my least favourite of all the stories. A bit of a formulaic fable - it was also the least imaginative of the stories for me but don't let that put you off, the other stories are certainly worth listening to - and I'm not even a fan of short stories.
Have you listened to any of T. C. Boyle’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No
Any additional comments?
All in all a good listen.
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1 person found this helpful
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Performance
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- Anna Rickey Montanez
- 01-14-13
Couldn't get into it...
What disappointed you about Wild Child?
Because I loved his other books, especially Drop City
What could T. C. Boyle have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
I guess it isn't the fault of the author. I have a harder time with short stories. I usually love series or really LONG novels with articulately drawn characters.
What didn’t you like about T. C. Boyle’s performance?
Most of the time I prefer when the author does not read their own story. Very few authors can do that, and see their work with fresh eyes.
What character would you cut from Wild Child?
Didn't get that far...
Any additional comments?
Nope.
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1 person found this helpful
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Performance
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- Colleen
- 12-21-12
NOT FOR ME
Would you try another book from T. C. Boyle and/or T. C. Boyle?
NOT SURE. THIS STORY JUST DEPRESSED ME.
ii couldn't get passed the second chapter
What was most disappointing about T. C. Boyle’s story?
iT WAS DEPRESING
Did T. C. Boyle do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?
i GUESS
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Wild Child?
DONT KNOW
Any additional comments?
NO
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