Publisher Description
A riveting novel of feeling and suspense in which grief and punishment become tragically intertwined. At the close of a beautiful summer day near the quiet Connecticut town where they live, the Learner family--Ethan and Grace, their children, Josh and Emma--stop at a gas station on their way home from a concert. Josh Learner, lost in a ten-year-old's private world, is standing at the edge of the road when a car comes racing around the bend. He is hit and instantly killed. The car speeds away. From this moment forward, Reservation Road becomes a harrowing countdown to the confrontation between two very different men. The hit-and-run driver is a small-town lawyer named Dwight Arno, a man in desperate need of a second chance. Dwight is also the father of a ten-year-old boy, who was asleep in the car the night Josh Learner was killed. Now Dwight must decide whether to run from his crime or to pay the price for what he did. Ethan Learner, a respected professor of literature at a small New England college, has seen his orderly world shattered in a single moment, yet persists in the belief that he can find the unknown man who killed his son. Behind their stories are those of eight-year-old Emma, who can't stop thinking her brother's death was her fault, and of Grace, who must find the strength to keep herself and her family together, and to be the mother Emma so badly needs. In a gripping narrative woven from the voices of Ethan, Dwight, and Grace, Reservation Road tells the story of two ordinary families facing an extraordinary crisis--a book that reads like a thriller but opens up a world rich with psychological nuance and emotional wisdom. Reservation Road explores the terrain of grief even as it astonishes with unexpected redemption: powerful and wrenching and impossible to put down.
Download and start listening now!
"After a horrible event, this book follows the emotional journeys of all those involved. The exploration of guilt, grief, and the reverberations we feel at the seams presents a bit of life that I recognize right away. It has a fairly good ending for a book of this type as well. And for you lit geeks, it has an interesting use of first person AND third person omniscient perspectives. I really liked this one."
—
Daniel (5 out of 5 stars)
About John Burnham Schwartz
John Burnham
Schwartz
is the author of several novels, including Claire
Marvel, Bicycle Days, and Reservation Road. His books have been
translated into more than fifteen languages, and his writing has appeared in
many publications, including the New York
Times and New Yorker. He lives
with his wife and their son in Brooklyn.
About the Narrators
Stanley Tucci is an actor, writer, director, and producer. He has directed five films and appeared in over seventy films, countless television shows, and a dozen plays on and off Broadway. He has been nominated for an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and a spoken word Grammy; is a winner of two Golden Globes and two Emmys; and has received numerous other critical and professional awards and accolades. He is also author of two cookbooks, The Tucci Table and The Tucci Cookbook.
John Shea’s career includes more than forty films, most notably the Academy Award-winner Missing. His television work includes Lois and Clark and Mutant X, and he has appeared in more than twenty-five plays on and off Broadway and in London’s West End.
Anne Twomey is an accomplished actress of both stage and screen. Her Broadway credits include Orpheus Descending with Vanessa Redgrave, To Grandmother’s House We Go, and Nuts, for which she received a Tony nomination and a Theatre World Award. Her many television appearances include guest roles on Seinfeld, Law & Order: SVU, Spin City, and the Christopher Reeves’ movie-of-the-week Rear Window. She has also appeared in the films Picture Perfect and Orpheus Descending. Her audiobook narrations have won her five AudioFile Earphones Awards.