Standard Deviation

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Standard Deviation

By: Katherine Heiny

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

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About this listen

‘I have rarely seen modern marriage reproduced so faithfully in print. It’s about love once the early romance has subsided. Hilarious’ Jojo Moyes, Woman and Home ‘Standard Deviation is a marvel’ Kate Atkinson ‘Addictive reading’ Mail on Sunday ‘A comic masterpiece’ Observer

A divinely funny novel about the challenges of a good marriage, the delight and heartache of raising children, and the irresistible temptation to wonder about the path not taken.

Graham Cavanaugh’s second wife, Audra, is everything his first wife was not. She considers herself privileged to live in the age of the hair towel, talks non-stop through her epidural, labour and delivery, invites the doorman to move in and the eccentric members of their son’s Origami Club to Thanksgiving. She is charming and spontaneous and fun but life with her can be exhausting.

In the midst of the day-to-day difficulties and delights of marriage and raising a child with Asperger’s, his first wife, Elspeth, reenters Graham’s life. Former spouses are hard to categorize – are they friends, enemies, old flames, or just people who know you really, really well? Graham starts to wonder: How can anyone love two such different women? Did he make the right choice? Is there a right choice?

Family Life

Fiction

Genre Fiction

Literature & Fiction

Romance

Romantic Comedy

Marriage

Comedy

Funny

Witty

Heartfelt

Feel-Good

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Critic reviews

"Audra Daltry is a singular creation - a character so funny, so appealing, so sure that she can change the world for her family that she will jump right off the page and take up permanent residence in your heart. Standard Deviation is a marvel." (Kate Atkinson, author of Life After Life)
"A book so funny and perceptive I want to be friends with its author." (Laline Paull, author of The Bees)
"I have been a fan of Katherine Heiny's writing for years but my adoration of her reaches a new apex with this, her first novel, Standard Deviation. It's an irresistibly charming novel about age-old institutions: marriage and parenting. But Heiny's brilliantly drawn characters and her keen insights make both topics feel brand new. A delightful, refreshing novel that illuminates the world of complicated relationships." (Elin Hilderbrand, author of Here's to Us)

Most relevant

Thoroughly enjoyed this novel. This isn’t a book about plot so much as characters. Audra is a simply wonderful creation stealing many of the best lines and I was desperate for her to leap off the pages and invite me to dinner with Graham. The book plays the inner life of a marriage, in all its mundanity and half retreats for different corners turned. The son, Matthew has Aspergers (feeling like it’s de rigeur in modern novels - and I say that as such a father) - but doesn’t quite come alive for me. But that’s perhaps the only slight misstep. This is a witty humorous novel that I simply lapped up. The narration is exquisite because I felt Audra was right there with me, wonderful. Highly recommended.