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Wayfaring Stranger (Abridged): A Novel Audiobook
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Publisher Description
2015 Audie Award Finalist for Thriller/Suspense
From “America’s best novelist” (The Denver Post): A sprawling thriller drenched with atmosphere and intrigue that takes a young boy from a chance encounter with Bonnie and Clyde to the trenches of World War II and the oil fields along the Texas-Louisiana coast.
It is 1934 and the Depression is bearing down when sixteen-year-old Weldon Avery Holland happens upon infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow after one of their notorious armed robberies. A confrontation with the outlaws ends as Weldon puts a bullet through the rear window of Clyde’s stolen automobile.
Ten years later, Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland and his sergeant, Hershel Pine, escape certain death in the Battle of the Bulge and encounter a beautiful young woman named Rosita Lowenstein hiding in a deserted extermination camp. Eventually, Weldon and Rosita fall in love and marry and, with Hershel, return to Texas to seek their fortunes.
There, they enter the domain of jackals known as the oil business. They meet Roy Wiseheart—a former Marine aviator haunted with guilt for deserting his squadron leader over the South Pacific—and Roy’s wife Clara, a vicious anti-Semite who is determined to make Weldon and Rosita’s life a nightmare. It will be the frontier justice upheld by Weldon’s grandfather, Texas lawman Hackberry Holland, and the legendary antics of Bonnie and Clyde that shape Weldon’s plans for saving his family from the evil forces that lurk in peacetime America and threaten to destroy them all.
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“The postwar setting allows Burke to dramatize the uncertain early days of big oil, but the characters, their volcanic conflicts and their implacable demons will be instantly recognizable to Burke’s many fans. Instead of focusing on the wages of long-ago sin, as he generally does, Burke shows the sins actually being committed over several fraught years in the nation’s history. The result is a new spaciousness married to his fine-tuned sense of retribution.”
— Kirkus Reviews
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“[A] pitch-black, decades-spanning family saga.”
— Entertainment Weekly -
“A big, broad, engagingly overstuffed new novel set with rousing confidence in midcentury Texas…saturated with the romance of the past while mournfully attuned to the unholy menace of the present…The novel is also full of prose as strong and precise as Hershel Pine’s pipeline welds…And then there’s Burke’s sense of place, which is so richly interwoven with his sense of history.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“Burke’s last three novels, Light of the World, Creole Belle, and Feast Day of Fools, were arguably his best. Wayfaring Stranger joins them as one of his most powerful and ambitious novels to date.”
— Associated Press -
“A historical novel, a thriller, a romance, and an irresistible read.”
— Tampa Bay Tribune -
“The story of one man’s struggle to live with integrity in postwar America. Burke, best known for his Dave Robicheaux series, writes with great assurance and wisdom, as well as a kind of bitter nostalgia for lost innocence.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review) -
“An ambitious, deeply satisfying historical thriller…The wartime scenes showcase Burke at his best—vivid, finely wrought, highly evocative writing…A wonderful slice of midcentury American life overlaid with the roiling drama of individual lives as only Burke can portray them.”
— Booklist (starred review) -
“Burke’s fans will recognize his lyrical strengths regarding the themes of social justice and class struggle, violence set to a stunning backdrop of natural beauty and destruction, and a Gulf Coast region that includes historically accurate details…Perhaps more than any of Burke’s previous work, Wayfaring Stranger is a tender love story…Beautifully composed and tragic, Wayfaring Stranger is a sweeping historical epic of war and the American dream.”
— Shelf Awareness -
“Similar in sweep to Edna Ferber’s Giant, this intricately plotted novel is recommended to readers interested in dramatic renderings of the societal changes of postwar America.”
— Library Journal -
“Will Patton’s narration of Burke’s novel is notable for its energy…Holland is a complex character listeners won’t want to miss, and Patton’s Texas accents are superb…All the major characters in the story—including Rosita and Holland’s former commander—have demons that Patton ably brings out. This book and Patton’s reading are outstanding.”
— AudioFile
Awards
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A USA Today bestseller
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One of Barnes & Noble's Biggest Books of July 2014
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A Publishers Weekly Pick of the Week, July 2014
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A New York Times bestseller
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A New York Times Editor’s Choice
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Finalist for the 2014 Hammett Prize
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About James Lee Burke
James Lee Burke is a New York Times bestselling author of forty novels and two short-story collections. He has won the Edgar Award, the CWA Gold Dagger, and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policièr. He was named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. His novel The Lost-Get Back Boogie was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and two of his books, Heaven’s Prisoners and Two for Texas, have been made into motion pictures.
About Will Patton
Will Patton is an award-winning actor and narrator. HIs narrations have earned the prestigious Audie Award for Best Fiction Narration and also won dozens of AudioFile Earphones Awards. His numerous film credits include Remember the Titans, The Punisher, The Mothman Prophesies, Armageddon, and The Spitfire Grill. He starred in the TNT miniseries Into the West and on the CBS series The Agency and won Obie Awards in the theater for his performances in Fool for Love and What Did He See.