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Consumed: A Novel Audiobook
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Publisher Description
“An eye-opening dazzler” (Stephen King) about a pair of globetrotting, gore-obsessed journalists whose entanglement in a French philosopher’s death becomes a surreal journey into global conspiracy from legendary filmmaker David Cronenberg.
Stylish and camera-obsessed, Naomi and Nathan thrive on the yellow journalism of the social-media age. Naomi finds herself drawn to the headlines surrounding a famous couple, Célestine and Aristide, Marxist philosophers and sexual libertines. Célestine has been found dead, and Aristide has disappeared. Police suspect him of killing her and consuming parts of her body. Yet Naomi sets off to find him, and as she delves deeper into the couple’s lives, she discovers the news story may only skim the surface of the disturbing acts they performed together.
Journalist Nathan, meanwhile, is in Budapest photographing the controversial work of an unlicensed surgeon named Zoltán Molnár, once sought by Interpol for organ trafficking. After sleeping with one of Molnár’s patients, Nathan contracts a rare STD called Roiphe’s and travels to Toronto, determined to meet the man who discovered the syndrome. Dr. Barry Roiphe, Nathan learns, now studies his own adult daughter, whose bizarre behavior masks a devastating secret.
These parallel narratives become entwined in a gripping, dreamlike plot that involves geopolitics, 3-D printing, North Korea, the Cannes Film Festival, cancer, and, in an incredible number of varieties, sex. Consumed is an exuberant, provocative debut novel from one of the world’s leading film directors, a writer of “fierce sculptural intensity” (Jonathan Lethem, The New York Times Book Review) who makes it “impossible to look away” (Publishers Weekly).
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“Coming from David Cronenberg, the originality, wit, preoccupation with technology, and uncompromising carnality of Consumed should come as no surprise. He will probably be accused of every sin that can be invented to compensate for human fear of mind and body. This fiercely original book, with the scope and poetic exactitude of Nabokov’s best work, has the power to unsettle, disarm, and finally make the reader absolutely complicit.”
— Viggo Mortenson, award-winning actor
Quotes
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“Consumed is an eye-opening dazzler. Not for the fainthearted, but for those of us who relish a trip into the shadowy depths, a must-read. Cronenberg’s novel is as troubling, sinister, and as enthralling as his films.”
— Stephen King -
“Classic Cronenberg! Who else can tell such a frightening, thrilling, shocking story about the nexus of the spirit and the flesh? Consumed will, well, consume you.”
— J. J. Abrams, American film and television producer -
“Cronenberg may be best known for his films, but this cool, unsympathetic examination of self-absorbed intellectuals shows that his skills as a prose author are not to be discounted.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“For cineasts raised on Cronenberg’s brilliant, twisted mid-’70s-to-mid-’80s oeuvre—video nasties like Rabid, The Brood, Videodrome, and Scanners—this debut will feel like a homecoming…The biggest revelation here is that Cronenberg is a gangbusters novelist…Let’s hope Cronenberg makes this book-writing thing a priority.”
— Booklist -
“Unsettling surprises are in store for everyone. Cronenberg’s fascination with human flesh and its relationship to and interaction with technology—in this case, a full regalia of laptops, cellphones, iPads and cameras—will be familiar to those who have seen his films…Cronenberg’s literary debut is not for everyone, but those who enjoyed eXistenZ and Naked Lunch will find much to like here.”
— Kirkus Reviews
Awards
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A New York Times Editor’s Choice
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About William Hurt
William Hurt (1950-2022) was an actor of stage and film and an Earphones Award-winning narrator. His many films include A History of Violence, The Village, Body Heat, The Big Chill, Sunshine, Smoke Eyewitness, Broadcast News, and Children of a Lesser God, as well as his Academy Award-winning role in Kiss of the Spiderwoman. His stage credits include Henry V, Hamlet, Richard II, HurlyBurly, and My Life.