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House of Meetings Audiobook
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(3.67) - 18 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
There were conjugal visits in the slave camps of the USSR. Valiant women would travel continental distances, over weeks and months, in the hope of spending a night with their particular enemy of the people, in the House of Meetings.
The consequences of these liaisons were almost invariably tragic.
House of Meetings is about one such liaison. It is a triangular romance: two brothers fall in love with the same girl, a nineteen-year-old Jewess, in Moscow, which is poised for massacre in the gap between the war and the death of Stalin. Both brothers are arrested, and their rivalry slowly complicates itself over a decade in the slave camp above the Arctic Circle.
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"For the first time in a long time, I had to keep a running list of new vocabulary, which made this book fun to read in spite of its violence and sadness. The reason the narrator uses such big words is explained late in the book. This story is a good reminder of some terrible history. "
— Marissa (4 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
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“House of Meetings is a powerful, unrelenting, and deeply affecting performance: a bullet train of a novel that barrels deep into the heart of darkness that was the Soviet gulag and takes the reader along on an unnerving journey into one of history’s most harrowing chapters.”
— New York Times -
“Very fine, very moving and easily Amis’ most accessible fiction since The Information.”
— Seattle Times -
“Its narrator is one of those vibrant monsters of nihilism, a Stalin in miniature, like Philip Roth’s Mickey Sabbath or John Lanchester’s Tarquin Winot. Here is evil, as creepy as it is unforgettable.”
— Newsday -
“The narrator is a man whose done terrible things and is able to look at them philosophically—a perfect character for a fearless writer like Amis.”
— Booklist (starred review)
Awards
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A 2007 Time Magazine Top 10 Book for Fiction
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One of the 2007 New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books for Fiction
House of Meetings Listener Reviews
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" This is a book of a rare genre: a fictional story that brings you the harsh realities of the Gulag in vivid details. Absolutely fascinating work by MA. "
— Dubai, 3/17/2011 -
" My favorite novel of the 21st Century so far. "
— Barton, 1/24/2011 -
" i think I didn't "get it." i didn't care for Amis' writing style in this book, although I thought the storyline was intriguing. his language, sentence structure, confused me. "
— Katrina, 1/24/2011 -
" It's easily the best Amis book I've read. A little unsatisfactory in resolving some plot questions, but overall a very compelling novel. "
— Patrick, 1/10/2011 -
" Not a pleasant read or a pleasant story, but it demonstrates Amis's usual (i.e., remarkable) intelligence (and is, as if we need it, an indictment of the USSR). "
— Tim, 12/27/2010 -
" The approach of the story was rather different, but interesting look at comtemporary Russia "
— Stephanie, 10/12/2010 -
" While his later work has been uneven, Amis has shown a real affinity for writing about the Russian experience in the 20th century. "
— David, 9/27/2010 -
" This was not the right Amis to start with. I mean Martin Amis. Or maybe I do mean the Amises in general. At any rate, I've just read way too many dense, self-mocking, and dour little books like this, thanks to kinds of classes I chose in college. <br/> <br/>C'mere, Kingsley. "
— Jennifer, 4/25/2010
About Martin Amis
Martin Amis (1949-2023) was an English novelist and screenwriter. His novels Night Train and London Fields made the New York Times bestsellers list. His memoir Experience won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and two of his books were finalists for the Booker Prize. His novel Money was named by London’s The Guardian as one of the top 100 Best Novels Written in English. He was a professor of creative writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester until 2011.
About Jeff Woodman
Jeff Woodman is an actor and narrator. He is a winner of the prestigious Audie Award and a six-time finalist. He has received twenty Earphones Awards and was named the 2008 Best Voice in Fiction & Classics, as well as one of the Fifty Greatest Voices of the Century by AudioFile magazine. As an actor, he originated the title role in Tennessee Williams’ The Notebook of Trigorin and won the S. F. Critics’ Circle Award for his performance in An Ideal Husband. In addition to numerous theater credits on and off Broadway, his television work includes Sex and the City, Law & Order, and Cosby.