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The Lost Landscape: A Writer's Coming of Age Audiobook
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Publisher Description
Written with the raw honesty and poignant insight that were the hallmarks of her acclaimed bestseller A Widow’s Story, an affecting and observant memoir of growing up from one of our finest and most beloved literary masters.
The Lost Landscape is Joyce Carol Oates’ vivid chronicle of her hardscrabble childhood in rural western New York State. From memories of her relatives, to those of a charming bond with a special red hen on her family farm; from her first friendships to her earliest experiences with death, The Lost Landscape is a powerful evocation of the romance of childhood, and its indelible influence on the woman and the writer she would become.
In this exceptionally candid, moving, and richly reflective account, Oates explores the world through the eyes of her younger self, an imaginative girl eager to tell stories about the world and the people she meets. While reading Alice in Wonderland changed a young Joyce forever and inspired her to view life as a series of endless adventures, growing up on a farm taught her harsh lessons about sacrifice, hard work, and loss. With searing detail and an acutely perceptive eye, Oates renders her memories and emotions with exquisite precision, transporting us to a forgotten place and time—the lost landscape of her youth, reminding us of the forgotten landscapes of our own earliest lives.
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"I loved the narration as I really felt the tone and pitch of the narrator was just right for this memoir spanning from childhood to older age. I knew nothing about Joyce Carol Oates and found her writing to be very emotional at times, such as recalling her childhood and her sister's illness. However the novel is somewhat disjointed with several anecdotes rather than a cohesive autobiographical structure. This made it tricky to follow at times and reduced the story rating for me to 3 stars"
— Sue Sew (4 out of 5 stars)
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“A tender-hearted excavation of [Oates’] hardscrabble early life…In sharing with us the lost landscape of her childhood, she has ensured it will never be forgotten.”
— O, The Oprah Magazine -
“Oates perfectly captures the unique confusion of childhood, brought on by the unsatisfying explanations of adults.”
— Elle -
“In her new memoir following in the wake of the bestselling A Widow’s Story, Oates reflects with piquant wit, startling frankness, and mesmerizing specificity on the aspects of her life that made her a writer…Generous in her personal disclosures in this graceful and bracing chronicle, Oates also considers the writer’s calling and the necessity and resonance of sympathy.”
— Booklist (starred review) -
“Cassandra Campbell’s beautifully expressive performance captures the emotional depth of these loosely interlocked essays…Using a conversational, almost storytelling, style, Campbell creates a welcome intimacy between the listener and Oates’s carefully crafted prose. Wiinner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile -
“The essays…range stylistically, but when Oates falls into her narrative strengths—an alert eye for detail, an atmosphere suffused with dread and apprehension, an enormous sympathy for her characters—the pieces become stunning…Varied, kaleidoscopic, and ultimately insightful.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“Glimpses of the iconic writer’s youth…A tender, often moving evocation of the physical and emotional landscapes that have shaped her…Warmly, gently told.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“Oates writes about her formative years with clear vision.”
— Library Journal
Awards
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An Amazon Best Book of the Month for Biographies and Memoirs
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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A New York Times bestseller
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About Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates, an award-winning author of fiction, nonfiction, short stories, plays, and novellas, is the author of some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including two New York Times bestsellers. Her books have won the National Book Award, O. Henry Award, the Jerusalem Prize, and the National Humanities Medal, among others. Her work has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize several times. She has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.
About Cassandra Campbell
Cassandra Campbell has won multiple Audie Awards, Earphones Awards, and the prestigious Odyssey Award for narration. She was been named a “Best Voice” by AudioFile magazine and in 2018 was inducted in Audible’s inaugural Narrator Hall of Fame.