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A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl: A Novel Audiobook
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Publisher Description
From National Book Award finalist and the New York Timesbestselling author of The Year We Left Home comes a “powerful, beautifully crafted” (People) family saga about three generations of women who struggle to find freedom and happiness in their small Midwestern college town.
A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl is a poignant novel about three generations of the Wise family—Evelyn, Laura, and Grace—as they hunt for contentment amid chaos of their own making.
We see these women and their trials, small and large: social slights and heartbreaks; marital disappointments and infidelities; familial dysfunction; mortality. Spanning from World War II to the present, Thompson reveals a matrilineal love story that is so perfectly grounded in our time—a story of three women regressing, stalling, and yes, evolving, over decades. One of the burning questions she asks is: by serving her family, is a woman destined to repeat the mistakes of previous generations, or can she transcend the expectations of a place, and a time? Can she truly be free?
Evelyn, Laura, and Grace are the glue that binds their family together. Tethered to their small Midwestern town—by choice or chance—Jean Thompson seamlessly weaves together the stories of the Wise women with humanity and elegance, through their heartbreaks, setbacks, triumphs, and tragedies. “Thompson’s new novel draws the reader in with character and plot…but what ultimately holds the reader enthralled is…her ability to capture the nuance of individual moments, thoughts, and reactions. No one writing today is better at this…[an] extraordinary novel” (Washington Independent Review of Books).
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“Cassandra Campbell’s warm, elegantly articulated narration brings to life this story of three generations of women in a small Midwestern college town. Campbell’s gentle pace and tone reveal the underlying desperation of Evelyn, Laura, and Grace, each of whom strives miserably to fulfill the role expected of her.”
— AudioFile
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“There’s not a false note in this powerful, beautifully crafted exploration of the trade-offs in women’s lives.”
— People -
“Thompson brilliantly explores familial struggles…[a] remarkable achievement.”
— New York Journal of Books
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About Jean Thompson
Jean Thompson is the author of Who Do You Love: Stories, a 1999 National Book Award finalist for fiction, City Boy, and Wide Blue Yonder, a New York Times Notable Book and Chicago Tribune Best Fiction selection. She lives in Urbana, Illinois. Over the course of a thirty-year career, she has been celebrated by critics as “a writer of extraordinary intelligence and sensitivity” (O, The Oprah Magazine), “an American Alice Munro” (Wall Street Journal), and “one of our most lucid and insightful writers” (San Francisco Chronicle). Her peers have been no less vocal, from Jennifer Egan (“bracing…boldly unconventional”) to David Sedaris (“if there are ‘Jean Thompson characters,’ they’re us, and never have we been as articulate and worthy of compassion”).
About Cassandra Campbell
Cassandra Campbell has won multiple Audie Awards, Earphones Awards, and the prestigious Odyssey Award for narration. She was been named a “Best Voice” by AudioFile magazine and in 2018 was inducted in Audible’s inaugural Narrator Hall of Fame.