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Title details for The Furrows by Namwali Serpell - Wait list

The Furrows

A Novel

by Namwali Serpell
Kristen Ariza
Audiobook
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Wait time: About 2 weeks
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0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award • One of the New York Times’ Ten Best Books of the Year • Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize

“A triumph.”—New York Magazine

From one of the most celebrated new voices in American literature, a brilliantly inventive and “enthralling” (Oprah Daily) novel about the eternal bonds of family and the mysteries of love and loss—“already earning its author comparisons to Toni Morrison” (Lit Hub).

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Oprah Daily, Time, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Esquire, Vulture, Ms. Magazine, Vox, Mental Floss, BookPage, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly
I don’t want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you how it felt.
Cassandra Williams is twelve; her little brother, Wayne, is seven. One day, when they’re alone together, there is an accident and Wayne is lost forever. His body is never recovered. The missing boy cleaves the family with doubt. Their father leaves, starts another family elsewhere. But their mother can’t give up hope and launches an organization dedicated to missing children. 
As C grows older, she sees her brother everywhere: in bistros, airplane aisles, subway cars. Here is her brother’s face, the light in his eyes, the way he seems to recognize her, too. But it can’t be, of course. Or can it? Then one day, in another accident, C meets a man both mysterious and familiar, a man who is also searching for someone and for his own place in the world. His name is Wayne. 
Namwali Serpell’s remarkable new novel captures the uncanny experience of grief, the way the past breaks over the present like waves in the sea. The Furrows is a bold exploration of memory and mourning that twists unexpectedly into a story of mistaken identity, double consciousness, and the wishful—and sometimes willful—longing for reunion with those we’ve lost.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    September 27, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593611128
      • File size: 252068 KB
      • Duration: 08:45:08

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from July 25, 2022
      In the brilliant and impressionistic latest from Serpell (The Old Drift), a young woman traverses the trenches of grief that have shaped her life. Cassandra’s younger brother, Wayne, drowned at the beach when she was 12, and his body was never found. With the steadiness of water seeking its level, Serpell explores the parallel but distinct realities Cassandra and her parents inhabit, leading up to her postcollege years: she’s forever in therapy, her mother won’t admit Wayne has died, and her father leaves them to start a new life. Whenever Cassandra is asked to retell the story, she can’t make sense of it. In a breathtaking maneuver, Serpell resets the novel again and again, cycling through possible accidents that convey Cassandra’s shock: Wayne drowns, he’s hit by a car, he’s thrown from a carousel. Then, Cassandra meets an enigmatic man she seems to know is her brother by the light in his eyes. In a series of shocking twists, Serpell shatters comfortable ideas about grief and melds Cassandra’s glittering narrative shards into a searching, unforgettable story. It’s a considerable shift from the huge canvas of her previous work, and no less captivating. P.J. Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Kristen Ariza, Ryan Vincent Anderson, and Dion Graham perform a powerful story about the lingering complexities of grief without closure. When Cassandra was a girl, her brother, Wayne, went missing, and his body was never found. Ariza narrates from the point of view of Cassandra, now an adult, and captures the intense longing that she experiences as she sees her brother's face everywhere, his loss haunting her every step. When Cassandra meets an adult man named Wayne, Graham narrates Wayne's perspective, giving listeners clues as to who he might be. Anderson narrates the perspective of a character who shows up in the novel unexpectedly, enhancing the incredible plot twist that will have listeners on the edge of their seats. K.D.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      June 10, 2024

      Serpell's (The Old Drift) haunting latest opens as Cassandra Williams remembers when she was 12, at the beach with her seven-year-old brother, Wayne. A sudden storm traps Wayne in the furrows between the waves. Cassandra swims out to rescue him but cannot save him. In the aftermath, her mother refuses to believe that Wayne is dead because there is no body, and despite years of therapy, Cassandra can't let him go either. Cassandra sees Wayne everywhere--she reimagines his death, and even encounters a man with his name. Cassandra is emotionally and physically drawn to this man, who also had a traumatic childhood and has unspoken motives for keeping her on his radar. Narrators Kristen Ariza, Ryan Vincent Anderson, and Dion Graham give voice to Serpell's complex characters, bringing out the fluid and unpredictable nature of time, grief, and love. Ariza narrates the part of Cassandra, while Graham takes over midway through to give voice to Wayne. Anderson narrates the part of a third character who introduces a shocking twist. VERDICT This slippery book twists and turns on itself in beautiful but confounding ways, blurring boundaries between truth and perception, reality and memory. Share with fans of Onyi Nwabineli's Someday, Maybe.--Joanna M. Burkhardt

      Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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