A Constellation of Vital Phenomena: A Novel Audiobook

Quotes

• “Powerful, convincing, beautifully realized--it's hard to believe that A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is a first novel. Anthony Marra is a writer to watch and savor.”

  — T. C. Boyle, New York Times bestselling author

• “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is simply spectacular. Not since Everything is Illuminated have I read a first novel so ambitious and fully realized. If this is where Anthony Marra begins his career, I can't imagine how far he will go.”

  — Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author

• “With remarkable pathos and a surprising amount of humor, Marra keeps the focus on the relationships, struggles, and tiny triumphs of an unforgettable group of characters...Marra creates a specific and riveting world around his characters, expertly revealing the unexpected connections among them…This novel, full of humanity and hope, ultimately leaves you uplifted. Constellation deserves to be on the short list for every major award. It’s an absolute masterpiece.”

  — Entertainment Weekly

• “Extraordinary....a twenty-first-century War and Peace…Marra seems to derive his astral calm in the face of catastrophe directly from Tolstoy.”

  — New York Times Book Review

• “A flash in the heavens that makes you look up and believe in miracles....Here, in fresh, graceful prose, is a profound story that dares to be as tender as it is ghastly, a story about desperate lives in a remote land that will quickly seem impossibly close and important...I haven’t been so overwhelmed by a novel in years. At the risk of raising your expectations too high, I have to say you simply must read this book.”

  — Washington Post

• “[A Constellation of Vital Phenomena] pulls together blown-out bits of a world turned inside-out to create a brutal form of beauty from chaos…Its prose is also ruefully funny in places and littered throughout with dazzling poetry.”

  — Chicago Tribune

• “A powerful tale....The moment Akhmed walks into the hospital with Havaa…rivals anything Michael Ondaatje has written in its emotional force....There are many reasons to read A Constellation of Vital Phenomena....to marvel at the lack of fear in a writer so young. To read a book that can bring tears to your eyes and force laughter from your lungs....But the one I kept returning to, the best reason to read this novel, is that this story reminds us how senseless killing often wrenches kindness through extreme circumstances.”

  — Boston Globe

• “Over and over again, this is an examination of the ways in which many broken pieces come together to make a new whole. In exquisite imagery, Marra tends carefully to the twisted strands of grace and tragedy....Everything in A Constellation of Vital Phenomena...is dignified with a hoping, aching heartbeat.”

  — San Francisco Chronicle

• “Excellent.”

  — New York magazine

• “Marra…writes dense prose full of elegant detail about the physical and emotional destruction of occupation and war.”

  — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

• “An extraordinary first novel.”

  — Booklist (starred review)

• “Affecting and harrowing…A decade of war in Chechnya informs this multivalent, heartfelt debut, filled with broken families, lost limbs, and valiant efforts to find scraps of hope and dignity.”

  — Kirkus Reviews

• “A novel of loyalty and sacrifice and enduring love. You’ll finish it transformed.”

  — Maile Meloy, author of Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It