Play Audiobook Sample
The Wanting Life: A Novel Audiobook
Play Audiobook Sample
(0.00) - 0 listener ratings
Quick Stats About this Audiobook
Total Audiobook Chapters:
Longest Chapter Length:
Shortest Chapter Length:
Average Chapter Length:
Audiobooks by this Author:
Publisher Description
Father Paul, a gay priest, reflects on his life while his sister and niece grapple with the life choices they’ve made.
Set in Rome, Cape Cod, and Wisconsin over the course of the summer of 2009 and in Rome during the spring of 1970, The Wanting Life tells the intertwined story of three members of the Novak family: Father Paul, a closeted gay Catholic priest who’s dying of cancer and has secrets he desperately wants to share; Britta, his self-destructive sister and caretaker, who’s struggling to find meaning in a world without her beloved husband; and Maura, Britta’s daughter—a thirty-nine-year-old artist who’s facing a choice between her husband and two children or the man she believes is her one, true love.
Featuring one of most unconventional love stories you’ll read this year, The Wanting Life is both a compulsively readable family drama about the toll that secrets and loyalty can take on us and a gorgeous meditation on the comforts (and limits) of faith and intimacy that calls to mind novels like Marilynne Robinson’s Home, Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy, and Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending.
Download and start listening now!
“Both quiet and deeply unsettling. A profound meditation on what we owe others and also ourselves, it balances the pleasure of getting to know a handful of vivid characters with the disconcerting awareness that their moral choices are, seeming by design, as impossible as our own.”
— Richard Russo, Pulitzer-Prize winning author
Quotes
-
“With indelible images, exquisite emotional nuance, and genuine wisdom, Rader explores faith, regret, shame, fear, and, most of all, love.”
— Booklist (starred review) -
“A cross-generational novel focused on happiness, fulfillment, and love…a novel whose leads are unafraid to explore the complicated territory of human desire.”
— Foreword Reviews -
“Readers will be touched by the portrait of Paul’s rich interior life. Fans of The Great Believers will appreciate this story of heartfelt empathy.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“Rader’s poignant debut novel explores the emotional costs of seeking and sacrificing romantic love…An insightful and compassionate family drama about desire, love, and the courage it takes to live a full life.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“Deeply complex and compulsively readable, this multi-generational story interrogates desire, truth, and what it means to lead a full life, in ways that are eternally urgent.”
— Gina Frangello, author of A Life in Men and Every Kind of Wanting -
“Beautiful, suspenseful, and ultimately hopeful.”
— Siobhan Adcock, author of The Barter and The Completionist -
“Every life is a love story, this book reminds us, and at every stage there’s a chance for a different future. I loved it.”
— Hannah Pittard, author of The Fates Will Find Their Way and Visible Empire
The Wanting Life Listener Reviews
Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
About Mark Rader
Mark Rader has had stories published in Glimmer Train, Epoch, and The Southern Review. He has been short-listed for an O. Henry Award, the Best American Non-Required Reading anthology, and a Pushcart Prize. He has an MFA in creative writing from Cornell University.
About Donald Corren
Donald Corren is an audiobook narrator and a New York actor with leading credits on and Off-Broadway, as well as numerous television appearances. On Broadway, he costarred with Judy Kaye in the critically acclaimed production of Souvenir, and replaced Harvey Fierstein in the seminal production of Torch Song Trilogy. His Off-Broadway appearances include The Soap Myth, Dietrich & Chevalier, The Last Sunday in June, Stephen Sondheim’s Saturday Night, and the original New York production of Tomfoolery. His television credits include eight seasons as forensic tech Medill on NBC’s Law & Order, as well as his current role as Dr. Kurian on Syfy’s Z Nation.