Soon to be an eight-part television series starring Lennie James
Barrington Jedidiah Walker is seventy-four and leads a double life. Born and bred in Antigua, he has lived in Hackney, London, for years. A flamboyant character with a fondness for William Shakespeare, Barrington is a husband, father, grandfather—and also secretly gay.
His deeply religious and disappointed wife, Carmel, thinks he sleeps with other women. When their marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington wants to divorce Carmel and live with Morris, but after a lifetime of fear and deception, will he manage to break away?
With an abundance of laugh-out-loud humor and wit, Mr. Loverman explodes cultural myths and shows the extent of what can happen when people fear the consequences of being true to themselves.
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“Told in two voices, this is a provocative contemporary story of a marriage and its unraveling. As Barry, a dapper septuagenarian, Ron Butler charms with his musical tenor. His sense of language and timing is spot on…Robin Miles offers a convincing, sympathetic portrayal, capturing Carmel’s evolving emotions as she reclaims herself.”
— AudioFile
“[A] riproaring, full-bodied riff on sex, secrecy, and family.”
— The Guardian (London)“The novel proves to be revolutionary in its honest portrayal of gay men…Evaristo’s writing is both intelligible and compelling.”
— Library Journal (starred review)“The writing is poetic, the characters are realistic and all sides are well portrayed.”
— Huffington Post“[A] comic, touching book.”
— Village Voice“Evaristo’s confident control of the language; her vibrant use of humor, rhythm, and poetry; and the realistic mix of Caribbean patois with both street and the Queen’s English…fix characters in the reader’s mind.”
— New York Times Book Review“Evaristo’s skill lies in taking standard metaphorical models and twisting them in the most unusual, original, inventive ways.”
— Sunday Times (London)“Evaristo is extremely attentive to the function of language, the power of words to shape reality.”
— Washington Post Book World“Beneath her careful study of race and sexuality is a beautiful love story.”
— Daily Telegraph (London)“Evaristo crafts a colorful look at a unique character confronting social normativity with a well-tuned voice and a resonant humanity.”
— Publishers Weekly“In this vibrant novel, Evaristo draws wonderful character portraits of complex individuals as well as the West Indian immigrant culture in Britain.”
— Booklist“Bernardine Evaristo can take any story from any time and turn it into something vibrating with life.”
— Ali Smith, author of Hotel World“Mr. Loverman is hilarious, poignant, clever, controversial, and courageous in equal measure. Loved, loved, loved it!”
— Dawn French, author of Oh Dear Silvia“Bernardine Evaristo uncovers characters lost to history and myth with compassion, an original and brilliant voice, and an unparalleled craft—all tinged with humor—she restores them and thus us.”
— Chris Abani, author of The Secret History of Las VegasBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Bernardine Evaristo is the Anglo-Nigerian award-winning author of several books of fiction and verse fiction, including the novel Girl, Woman, Other, which won the 2019 Booker Prize. She is the first Black woman to ever have received the Booker Prize. She is professor of creative writing at Brunel University London and vice chair of the Royal Society of Literature. Her writing is characterized by experimentation, daring, and subversion, challenging the myths of various Afro-diasporic histories and identities, and her books range in genre from poetry to short story to drama to criticism. Her books have been chosen as a book of the year thirteen times by British media, and her novel The Emperor’s Babe was a London Times Book of the Decade.
Robin Miles, named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, has twice won the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration, an Audie Award for directing, and many Earphones Awards. Her film and television acting credits include The Last Days of Disco, Primary Colors, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order, New York Undercover, National Geographic’s Tales from the Wild, All My Children, and One Life to Live. She regularly gives seminars to members of SAG and AFTRA actors’ unions, and in 2005 she started Narration Arts Workshop in New York City, offering audiobook recording classes and coaching. She holds a BA degree in theater studies from Yale University, an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama, and a certificate from the British American Drama Academy in England.
Ron Butler is a Los Angeles–based actor, Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator, and voice artist with over a hundred film and television credits. Most kids will recognize him from the three seasons he spent on Nickelodeon’s True Jackson, VP. He works regularly as a commercial and animation voice-over artist and has voiced a wide variety of audiobooks. He is a member of the Atlantic Theater Company and an Independent Filmmaker Project Award winner for his work in the HBO film Everyday People.