National Book Award finalist Jean Thompson traces the complicated friendship of two very different women who meet in college. In the tradition of her bestselling novel The Year We Left Home, Thompson has crafted a novel of remarkable psychological suspense, cast with the kinds of deeply realized characters that have been heralded as “emotionally fluid” and “deeply familiar.”
The night that Jane and Bonnie meet on a college campus sets them on paths forever entwined. Bonnie, the wild and experimental one, always up for anything, has spent the past two decades bouncing between ill-fated relationships; while Jane’s seemingly perfect life, perfect husband, and perfect children appear to have materialized out of a fantasy. But these appearances contradict the quiet, inescapable doubt Jane feels about her life. One night, in the middle of her own Christmas party, she steps outside into the snow, removes her clothing and shoes, and lies down in the backyard. When she is discovered, nothing is the same for anyone. As Jane begins to have visions and retreat into a private inner world, Bonnie finds herself drawn inevitably into an affair with Jane’s husband.
Thompson’s mastery of complex emotion begets a novel of desire and the nature of love—who we love, how we’re loved, and, most important, that we reach urgently and always for a higher love, regardless of our circumstances. She Poured Out Her Heart is a finely wrought, haunting story of female friendship, deception, and the distance in between.
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“Narrator Madeleine Lambert provides just the right touches of softness and starkness to doubt-addled Jane’s ‘perfect’ domestic life…Lambert deftly unwraps this story, with excellent pacing and deep characterizations that will be difficult for listeners to forget.”
— AudioFile
“Unexpected and gripping…The narrative ramps up a notch and turns into that most engrossing of beasts, a novel about sex…wonderfully well described, shot through with guilt and risk and yet presented entirely without mawkishness or sentimentality.”
— New York Times Book Review“A tense, artful, rich and involving novel that strips the world down to its bones and also makes you care deeply for the two women whose lives it lays bare.”
— National Book Review“A nuanced study of marriage and friendship, fidelity and deceit…the enduring value of friendship, and the ways in which our mistakes can also offer opportunities for personal growth and redemption.”
— Milwaukee Journal Sentinel“With piercing empathy and incandescent humor, Thompson considers the riddles of sexual passion and love, self and change, loyalty and forgiveness.”
— Booklist“Thompson’s many fans will still find moments of clarity and insight in this parallel character study.”
— Publishers WeeklyBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Jean Thompson is the author of Who Do You Love: Stories, a 1999 National Book Award finalist for fiction, City Boy, and Wide Blue Yonder, a New York Times Notable Book and Chicago Tribune Best Fiction selection. She lives in Urbana, Illinois. Over the course of a thirty-year career, she has been celebrated by critics as “a writer of extraordinary intelligence and sensitivity” (O, The Oprah Magazine), “an American Alice Munro” (Wall Street Journal), and “one of our most lucid and insightful writers” (San Francisco Chronicle). Her peers have been no less vocal, from Jennifer Egan (“bracing…boldly unconventional”) to David Sedaris (“if there are ‘Jean Thompson characters,’ they’re us, and never have we been as articulate and worthy of compassion”).
Madeleine Lambert received her MFA in acting from Brown University and Trinity Rep. Her performances at Trinity Repertory Company include Shelby in Steel Magnolias and Belle in A Christmas Carol. Madeleine graduated with honors from Duke University with majors in theater studies and English and a minor in French. She attended the School at Steppenwolf in Chicago.