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The American Boy

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The American Boy

By: Andrew Taylor
Narrated by: Alex Jennings
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About this listen

 A Richard and Judy Book Club Selection.

England, 1819. Two enigmatic Americans arrive in London and soon after, a bank collapses. A man is found dead on a building site; another goes missing in the teeming stews of Seven Dials. A deathbed vigil ends in an act of theft and a beautiful heiress flirts with her inferiors. A strange destiny links each of these events to the American boy Edgar Allen Poe, brought to England by his foster father and sent to the leafy village of Stoke Newington to be educated. Soon the intrigue enmeshes a poor schoolmaster, Thomas Shield, who struggles to understand what is happening before it destroys him and those he loves.©2003 Andrew Taylor (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Crime Thrillers Detective Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Literary Fiction Mystery Regency Regency Romance Romance Suspense Thriller Thriller & Suspense Traditional Detectives England Crime

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Critic reviews

A Richard and Judy Book Club selection

"Jennings reads with such enormous variety that we are consumed by his characterizations.... The listener becomes completely absorbed with the persona of the novel." (AudioFile)
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This Gothic murky murder mystery is full of as much Wilkie Collins and Edgar Allan Poe gothic as you could imagine, and plenty of Andrew Taylor's own. This is Taylor's 2003 award-winning The American Boy with the extra dimension of Alex Jennings's narration which produces all the voices (male and female, young and old), accents, pace and nuance required for a first rate narration.
Thomas Shield is a young school master in whose class is The American Boy, Edgar Allan Poe and his shy friend Frant in whose lives the young man is to become dangerously embroiled.
Andrew Taylor can be relied on for authentic historical background which makes you feel that you are absolutely there with all the vivid details of daily life and historical background - here it is Regency England in 1819 and financial affairs in America. There's all you could wish for in gothic mystery: murder, deceit, passion, loveless marriage, dangers, old mansions with rambling gardens and outhouses, jealousies, old grievances ... At the very end an Epilogue tells us just how much of the Edgar Allan Poe story is fact.

Enjoyable Gothic mystery

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I found it difficult to remain engaged with this book. It’s a complex and sometimes dark tale of love loss and murder.

Because I struggled to listen I found it confusing at times and had to repeat sections to get the gist of the plot. It’s a twisting tale and fortunes go up and down. Well narrated.

Long winded and occasionally dreary

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An excellent story, read even more excellently, if that's a word, by Alex Jennings.
However, having listened to Jennings' rendition of 'Pompeii' at least three times, I did keep thinking the school's headteacher was Plinny!
The story is very entwined, and you do need to concentrate to keep track of the characters. I tend to listen to stories as 30 seconds here, 2 minutes there, half an hour sometimes, which makes this difficult. The ageing process instills a sense of mild panic that there aren't enough years left to read or listen to all the great books out there, so every 30 seconds must be grabbed as an opportunity not to be missed :-)
The accents Jennings' manages are first class, especially Poe's slipping from Irish to Scottish to American, from sentence to sentence. So skilfully done by Jennings.
The story and imagery are very Dickensesque. Set between 1819 and 1850 or thereabouts, it straddles the years of Dickens childhood and youth, so this is not surprising.
I enjoyed this book and thoroughly recommend it. Even if I did lose the plot a bit in the finally quarter!

Excellent. Although I did get a bit lost.

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thoroughly enjoyable with an unexpected end. Narration was excellent, accents, expressiveness and both male and female characters well expressed. Highly recommend,

a story Poe could himself have written!

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What a pleasure to listen to!! All the characters were well recognised! Gosh what a time to have lived through as a Woman,
even if you had money!!!

Excellent narration

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