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The Great Wide Open
- Narrated by: Regina Reagan
- Length: 19 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
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The best book I’ve ever listened to.
- By Amazon Customer on 16-05-20
Summary
Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Great Wide Open, by Douglas Kennedy.
“All families are secret societies. Realms of intrigue and internal warfare, governed by their own rules...”
It’s 1980s New York. Heady, excessive times. Alice Burns - a young book editor - is deep into a manuscript about the morass of family life. The observations resonate, perhaps because she has just watched her own family implode.
As she reads she wonders: when did the sadness start? And could it be that unhappiness is a choice?
Thus begins a great American epic which follows Alice as she navigates high school bullying, first love and sexism at an elite college, a spell in 1970s Ireland, and a tragedy that sends her stateside as the US embraces a cowboy actor named Reagan. But it is also the tale of her endlessly complex parents and brothers - how their destinies are written by the lies they tell themselves and others.
The Great Wide Open is an immensely ambitious and compulsive saga, a novel which will speak volumes to anyone who has marvelled at that pain that can only be caused by family itself.
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What listeners say about The Great Wide Open
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- matriarch
- 21-12-19
Gripping Book
I love this sort of book which is based on past modern history and so well narrated. I didn't want it to end and will hopefully tgere will be a sequel.
2 people found this helpful
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- JAF
- 30-01-20
Another Douglas Kennedy classic
Not my favourite DK book but it is up there. Nice and long so you can really get into the story line. Well worth a listen. Looking forward to the next one!!
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-11-20
Boring book
Boring not nearly as good as his other books. Couldn’t even finish it Almost put me off the author