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About this listen

"What are you afraid of, he asks me and the answer of course is dentistry, humiliation, scarcity, then he says what are your most useful skills? People think I'm funny."

Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practise her other calling: as an unofficial shrink. For years, she has supported her God-haunted mother and her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but then her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal. Sylvia has become famous for her prescient podcast, 'Hell and High Water', and wants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives: from left-wingers worried about climate change and right wingers worried about the decline of western civilization.

As she dives into this polarized world, she begins to wonder what it means to keep tending your own garden once you've seen the flames beyond its walls. When her brother becomes a father and Sylvia a recluse, Lizzie is forced to acknowledge the limits of what she can do. But if she can't save others, then what, or who, might save her?

And all the while the voices of the city keep floating in - funny, disturbing, and increasingly mad.

©2020 Jenny Offill (P)2020 Jenny Offill Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological
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Odd stream of consciousness style, I had to stop listening during the USA election cycle as it mirrored my own anxiety too much. interesting idea, quite funny.

A picture of contemporary anxiety

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Thoughtful, moving and funny observations enmeshed in a gently told story of contemporary life with its joys and woes. I cared so much for the characters I was sorry when the book came to an end.

Gentle observations on contemporary life

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I don't think I have ever listened to a book quite like this. "Unique" is a word I don't like to use when reviewing a book.... But this is, kind of unique. Totally modern, charmingly dystopian.... A novel for these times, whatever they may be

Brilliant and strange

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I'm really not sure what to say about this one. It wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. A bit dull, plodding along. It didn't hold my attention and I found it to be full of seemingly unconnected threads.

Uninspiring

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Delicately written with subtle increments to indicate time passing and things changing.. a story many will identify with. The characters are completely relatable as is the angst.

Understated and moving

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