All That Follows, Jim Crace
All That Follows, Jim Crace
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All That Follows

Author: Jim Crace

Narrator: Maxwell Caulfield

Unabridged: 8 hr 13 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/20/2010


Synopsis

The prodigiously talented Jim Crace has returned with a new novel that explores the complexities of love and violence with a scenario that juxtaposes humor and human aspiration. 

British jazzman Leonard Lessing spent a memorable yet unsuccessful few days in Austin, Texas, trying to seduce a woman he fancied. During his stay, he became caught up in her messy life, which included a new lover, a charismatic but carelessly violent man named Maxie.
 
Eighteen years later, Maxie enters Leonard’s life again, but this time in England, where he is armed and holding hostages. Leonard must decide whether to sit silently by as the standoff unfolds or find the courage to go to the crime scene where he could potentially save lives. The lives of two mothers and two daughters—all strikingly independent and spirited—hang in the balance.
 
Set in Texas and the suburbs of England, All That Follows is a novel in which tender, unheroic moments triumph over the more strident and aggressive facets of our age.
 
It also provides moving and surprising insights into the conflict between our private and public lives and redefines heroism in this new century. It is a masterful work from one of Britain’s brightest literary lights.

About The Author

JIM CRACE is the author of nine previous novels, including most recently, The PesthouseBeing Dead was shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread Fiction Prize and won the U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 2000. In 1997, Quarantine was named the Whitbread Novel of the Year and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Jim Crace has also received the E.M. Forster Award, and the Guardian Fiction Prize. He lives in Birmingham, England.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Alan on June 16, 2013

...a man breathes into a saxophone, And through the walls we hear the city moan [...] Outside it's America... —U2, "Bullet the Blue Sky" Leonard Lessing is a jazz saxophone player, a good one, with a solid career and artistic integrity to boot. He's currently residing in England, with his wife Francine.......more

Goodreads review by Tuck on December 05, 2010

i wanted this to be better, and then the flashback to 2006 austin tx helped a lot, then things started looking up in 2026 for lennie/leon/leornard and his timidness actually was filmed and broadcast and it SEEMED like he wasn't a timorous nambypamby asshole but a real tough dude. i learned two thing......more

Goodreads review by LeastTorque on January 20, 2023

Jim Crace is a master at creating tension in unusual places and omitting it where it would appear in less original stories. Unlike some other reviewers, the opening chapters had me riveted. Chapter 4 in particular captured so brilliantly the thoughts that fill your head when you are returning home a......more

Goodreads review by Felicity on May 23, 2010

This probably deserves 3.5 stars, as Jim Crace is clearly a more compelling writer than many others. Nonetheless, I think I preferred "Pesthouse" to this novel, although it's like comparing apples to oranges. They are very different books...a sign of Crace's skill as a writer. What I did find partic......more

Goodreads review by Conrad on January 14, 2017

Leonard Lessing, a jazz saxophonist, is something of a Walter Mitty character. He's not a man of courage but he likes to imagine that he could be. The story is set in England in the not too distant future (2024) where the surveillance state has progressed - not quite to Orwell's vision of 1984 - to......more


Quotes

“[Crace] plumbs the psychological depths of his characters and moves seamlessly from interior fears and doubts to sudden often violent actions in such a graceful and mordantly lyrical manner that the spell he casts is never broken . . . . Mesmerizing . . . . Crace’s prose gets under your skin as it quietly assaults conventional expectations and the sudden possibilities that human consciousness and impulse can both contrive and exploit. In his all-too-human hero on the horn, he captures the human condition in all its sinuous, improvisational and sensual essence.”
The Providence Journal

"A psychological novel of ideas . . . . Excellent."
The Times

"All That Follows is written in crisp, efficent prose and Crace's treatment of Leonard is sympathetic and warm, particularly when it comes to his beloved instrument . . . . Crace's women are characteristically strong and vibrant . . . . It is as accomplished as his previous nine novels and is a testament to his craft and versatility."
The Sydney Morning Herald

"The writing is excellent, and the story moves along with a seductive force.  Another fine work from [Crace]."
Library Journal

"Crace sensitively depicts a middle-aged man coming to terms with the choices he has made, missed opportunities and all."
—Booklist