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Bastards: A Memoir Audiobook
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In the early 1980s, Mary Hall is a little girl growing up in poverty in Camden, New Jersey, with her older brother Jacob and parents who, in her words, were great at making babies, but not so great at holding on to them. After her father leaves the family, she is raised among a commune of mothers in a low-income housing complex. Then, no longer able to care for the only daughter she has left at home, Mary's mother sends Mary away to a small town in Oklahoma to live with her maternal grandparents, who have also been raising her older sister, Rebecca. When Mary is legally adopted by her grandparents, the result is a family story like no other. Because Mary was adopted by her grandparents, Mary's mother, Patty, is legally her sister, while her brother, Jacob, is legally her nephew.
Living in Oklahoma with her maternal grandfather, Mary gets a new name and a new life. But she's haunted by the past: by the baby girls she's sure will come looking for her someday, by the mother she left behind, by the father who left her. Mary is a college student when her sisters start to get back in touch. With each subsequent reunion, her family becomes closer to whole again.
Moving, haunting, and at times wickedly funny, Bastards is about finding ones family and oneself.
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“At turns hilarious, at turns heartbreaking, Bastards is the story a young girl who [bares] painful witness as each piece of her large family is chipped away. King emerges as a keen observer and a phenomenal storyteller. Bastards is a stellar memoir to be savored by fans of the The Glass Castle and The Liar’s Club.”
— Jennifer Vanderbes author of Strangers at the Feast
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“King fearlessly untangles the complicated story of a family plagued by abundant loss who nevertheless redefine what it means to love and forgive.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“This searing book explores how identity forms love, and love, identity. Written in engrossing, intimate prose, it makes us rethink how blood’s deep connections relate to the attachments of proximity.”
— Andrew Solomon, National Book Award–winning author of Far From the Tree -
“An impressive debut…[King’s] prose moves with lyrical wit and cultural texture as she persists with all of her protean self to figure out the nature of family and the deepest human connections amid trauma and confusion.”
— Peter Balakian, New York Times bestselling author of Black Dog of Fate -
“With Bastards Mary Anna King has crafted a wise and indispensable meditation on the true nature of family, the dislocations of adoption, and all the vital species of love. She brings light to them all.”
— Steve Almond, bestselling author of Against Football -
“Mary Anna King’s Bastards is funny and wise and very entertaining. If you think you had a weird childhood, well, King’s book will put that right into perspective.”
— Blake Bailey, author of The Splendid Things We Planned -
“Only a writer with King’s keen eye, expert storytelling skills, and from-the-heart honesty can turn a childhood this deficient into a book so rich.”
— Franz Wisner, bestselling author of Honeymoon with My Brother
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About Mary Anna King
Mary King was born in southern New Jersey and grew up in Oklahoma City, OK, where she was adopted at the age of ten. After studying English literature at Colgate University she moved to Los Angeles where she lives and writes.
About Christina Delaine
Christina Delaine is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator and accomplished stage actress. Her theater credits include Jewtopia, the longest-running comedy in Off-Broadway history, and the title role in Antigone at both Portland Center Stage and Kentucky Repertory Theatre. She holds a BA degree from Dartmouth College and an MFA in acting from Brown University.