Here I Am
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Get 3 months for £0.99/mo
Here I Am
Buy Now for £16.99
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Narrated by:
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Ari Fliakos
About this listen
Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer, read by Ari Fliakos.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From the bestselling author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Everything is Illuminated and We are the Weather - a rich and moving novel about modern family lives and the ties that bind
'Towering and glorious: a tale of social, familial and marital breakdown and the End of the World. The funniest literary novel I have ever read' The Times
'A rich, beautifully written, ambitious and grandly moving novel, which looks both at the world at large and at the deepest concerns of individual lives' Evening Standard
'Lays bare the interior of a marriage with such intelligence and deep feeling and pitiless clarity, it's impossible to read it and not re-examine your own family' Time
'Astonishing. So sad and so funny and so wry' Scotland on Sunday
Jacob and Julia Bloch are about to be tested . . .
By Jacob's grandfather, who won't go quietly into a retirement home.
By the family reunion, that everyone is dreading.
By their son's heroic attempts to get expelled.
And by the sexting affair that will rock their marriage.
A typical modern American family, the Blochs cling together even as they are torn apart. Which is when catastrophe decides to strike . . .
Confronting the enduring question of what it means to be human with inventiveness, playfulness and compassion, Here I Am is a great American family novel for our times, an unmissable read for fans of Jonathan Franzen and Michael Chabon, a masterpiece about how we live now.
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Critic reviews
The audiobook achieves that rarity of Safran Foer's dense and examining writing, relatable characters who feel familiar, frustrating and sympathetic and a performance by Ari Fliakos that really helps make the characters and story come to life (his portrayal of Irv alone is worth the credit. If this were a film, he'd be nominated for best supporting actor).
The two twin disasters of war and divorce are played out while digging deep into themes of family dynamics, monogamy and happiness, ritual, faith, reality vs. virtual reality, consumerism, childhood, politics, culture and the riddle that is: how do you prioritise your own happiness vs. your family vs. looking out for all of mankind? And all of this seasoned with the ever-present backdrop of the American Jewish experience in all its complexity and oddity and what that means when truly tested in the context of the outbreak of war in the middle east.
The story immediately pulls you in by revealing that something very bad is about to happen a few days / weeks after we're introduced to Sam, but the tension is held until roughly halfway through before we realise what's waiting for our characters. In the meantime, the writing and portrayals of the easily-relatable and endlessly infuriating Jacob, Julia, their - sometimes unrealistically articulate - children, parents, the "Israeli cousins" (another breakthrough performance of Tamir by Fliakos) and more carry us deep within the all-too-real world that the author has made for us.
I've read other reviews that complain about the book's complexity and density. Sure, no book should be for everyone and if you like your audiobooks light and entertaining then I'd avoid this. If you enjoy critical thinking and reflecting and delighting in the author's words that shine new light and perspective on otherwise unreflected surfaces then I'd recommend both the story as written by Safran Foer and the performance given by Fliakos.
Complex and relatable characters and story
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Second half lacks immediacy and story
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