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Where My Heart Used to Beat
- Narrated by: David Sibley
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
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Summary
"You don't live the life I have without making some enemies."
Having accepted a strange but intriguing invitation to a French island, psychiatrist Robert Hendricks meets the man who has commissioned him to write a biography. But his subject seems more interested in finding out about Robert's past than he does in revealing his own.
For years, Robert has refused to discuss his past. After the war was over, he refused to go to reunions, believing in some way that denying the killing and the deaths of his friends and fellow soldiers, would mean he wouldn't be defined by the experience. Suddenly, he can't keep the memories from overtaking him. But can he trust his memories and can we believe what other people tell us about theirs?
Moving between the present and the past, between France and Italy, New York and London, this is a powerful story about love and war, memory and desire, the relationship between the body and the mind. Compelling and full of suspense, Where My Heart Used to Beat is a tender, brutal and thoughtful portrait of a man and a century, which asks whether, given the carnage we've witnessed and inflicted over the past 100 years, people can ever be the same?
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What listeners say about Where My Heart Used to Beat
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- michael j jones
- 25-11-15
A beautifully written novel.
Would you consider the audio edition of Where My Heart Used to Beat to be better than the print version?
Faulks is a brilliant writer and I'm sure that the print version would be just as enjoyable to read as the audio version was to listen to. I have read a few of Faulks' novels and enjoyed them nearly as much as the audio version.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Where My Heart Used to Beat?
I enjoyed the whole fascinating story. It was a pleasure to try and guess where the twists and turns of the plot were leading.
What about David Sibley’s performance did you like?
It was well read and easy to follow. I would guess that David Sibley enjoyed reading it.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes, I found it difficult to stop listening, but life goes on back in the big bad world.
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7 people found this helpful
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- holly bird
- 22-10-15
Engaging Story
Any additional comments?
I very much enjoyed listening to this book as Sebastian Faulks never fails to deliver. But can you really believe that two intelligent, strong individuals, (spoiler following) who are madly, deeply in love could lose each other so easily, and not put in a supreme effort to seek and search each other out, when the time was appropriate? I found it hard to believe, and a great deal of the book centers around this affair de l'amour.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Mark
- 02-09-16
Heartbreaking and Beautiful
This is an original and profoundly moving novel that moved me emotionally in ways I had not thought possible. I urge everyone to experience this book which is everything a great novel should be. The reading is flawless.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Jude B
- 25-03-17
1
this is a very moving and intriguing story could not stop listening highly recommended ..
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1 person found this helpful
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- R. Davies
- 18-02-16
Great read. Marvellous story.
A book that includes the sad tales of both world wars, exposes the shameful psychiatric services of the early twentieth century, but has romance and depth is a great achievement.
Descriptively astonishing and complex.
Some of the medical references were not perfect IMHO
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3 people found this helpful
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- DartmoorDiva
- 07-03-21
Enthralling and moving
What an engrossing novel beautifully written and well-read, I had not foreseen some of the revelations at the end and, after I'd finished listening, sat for a long time reflecting on it. I felt incredibly moved by it.
I have only one complaint - why do the producers, editors, or whoever, not listen to the recordings right through? Near the end of Chapter 15 is an interruption, where the narrator stops and speaks out of character, to re-records something - it completely broke the spell! This seems to occur quite often in audiobooks and it's irritating and unprofessional. I'm just glad it wasn't in the final chapter or it might have completely ruined the experience.
Other than that, a fabulous listen.
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1 person found this helpful
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- DC
- 17-06-20
A magnificent and heart rending story
This book speaks of the angst of the two world wars, of love and friendship and sadness and loss
It is an affecting story and one of Sebastian Faulks best. I did not want it to finish
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- Rachel Redford
- 17-09-15
'I remember, I remember'... or do you?
Dr Robert Hendricks is a damaged man. He is 64 in 1980, the year Faulks' novel is set, his father had died when he was 2 during WW1 and Robert himself had served in the trenches in 1944 Anzio. The core of the story is Robert's visits to the Mediterranean island where the elderly Dr Pereira, a neuroscientist, lives. Pereira had known Robert's father during WW1 and he tells Robert the truth about his father's death. The never-delivered letters written to Robert's mother during the war which are in Pereira's possession and which Robert finally gets to read provide the poignant climax to the novel.
Faulks is very good at cameo scenes - on Robert's first day on the island, a mysterious girl slips off her flimsy dress and dives naked in search of sea urchins which she shares with him when she emerges from the water - but the whole is diffuse with constant changes of decade and place. The protagonist - as it was in Faulks' 2005 novel Human Traces - is not one of the many characters, not even Robert himself, but Faulks' intellect. His interest in the history and practice of neuro science in the treatment of mental illness is his passion, and Robert is his vehicle for communicating it to the listener. The mix of his intellectual pursuits - memory, how we remember, how the past affects the present; analyses of love and madness; the changing philosophy in the treatment of mania and so on - never really gels with the characters as real people, which makes Robert's relationships lack the emotional pull for te listener that they should have.
The intellectual rewards of Faulks' writing are substantial however, increased by the constant tolling in Robert's head of the classic Greek and Roman writers enabling him to make comparisons with the modern violent world. There are also the quotations from poets, T.S.Eliot's later poems musing on layers of reality and time being most favoured, and the detailed discussions between specialists within the story.
There are parts in Robert's past which could well be cut, particularly his many experiences of the treatment of various mentally ill patients, but despite these less successful elements, the whole is definitely worth listening to. It's extremely well read and there is plenty to feed the mind. Faulks get 10 out of 10 for the title - taken from Tennyson's In Memoriam - as it echoes the sense of loss throughout the novel. But he gets zero for his sexual encounter with Anna!
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15 people found this helpful
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- Thad Beumont
- 26-05-16
Not my usual taste but an enjoyable listen
This is (deliberately) a rather navel gazing novel documenting a war veteran's journey to know his father, and how it has affected his relationships to others and himself.
It is quite thought provoking at times and banal at others. It's made me consider listening to similar titles, but I think they will always be low on my list if priorities.
The narrator really is good and his sort of discombobulated style really lends texture to the characters writing and internal monologue.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-03-16
A Fine Book !
Enjoyed this book very much - made me think and wonder about my own relatives who participated in both World Wars and feel sad that I never bothered to ask about their experiences
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2 people found this helpful