Dear Miss Metropolitan, Carolyn Ferrell
Dear Miss Metropolitan, Carolyn Ferrell
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Dear Miss Metropolitan
A Novel

Author: Carolyn Ferrell

Narrator: Bahni Turpin

Unabridged: 11 hr 13 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/06/2021

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

A finalist for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
A finalist for the 2022 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel

Introducing an extraordinary and original writer whose first novel explores the intersections of grief and rage, personal strength and healing—and what we owe one another.

Fern seeks refuge from her mother’s pill-popping and boyfriends via Soul Train; Gwin finds salvation in the music of Prince much to her congregation’s dismay and Jessenia, miles ahead of her classmates at her gifted and talented high school, is a brainy and precocious enigma. None of this matters to Boss Man, the monster who abducts them and holds them captive in a dilapidated house in Queens.

On the night they are finally rescued, throngs line the block gawking and claiming ignorance. Among them is lifetime resident Miss Metropolitan, advice columnist for the local weekly, but how could anyone who fancies herself a “newspaperwoman” have missed a horror story unfolding right across the street? And why is it that only two of the three girls—now women—were found? The mystery haunts the two remaining “victim girls” who are subjected to the further trauma of becoming symbols as they continuously adapt to their present and their unrelenting past.

Like Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys, Carolyn Ferrell’s Dear Miss Metropolitan gives voice to characters surviving unimaginable tragedy. The story is inventively revealed before, during, and after the ordeal in this singular and urgent novel.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company

About Carolyn Ferrell

Carolyn Ferrell is the author of the short-story collection Don’t Erase Me, which was awarded the Art Seidenbaum Award of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize program, the John C. Zacharis Award given by Ploughshares, and the Quality Paperback Book Prize for First Fiction. She has also received grants from the Fulbright Association, German Academic Exchange (DAAD), City University of New York MAGNET Program, and National Endowment for the Arts. Ferrell’s stories have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories 2018 and The Best American Short Stories of the Century, among other places. She teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York with her husband and children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Melissa (Always Behind) on December 02, 2021

3.5 stars, rounded up This is a moving and deeply complex novel centered on three girls who are kidnapped, held hostage, and severely abused by a man for over ten years. It's loosely based on the Ariel Castro case, the author obviously took those details and created her own tale surrounding the befor......more

Goodreads review by Barbara on May 09, 2023

4.5 stars: I listened to “Dear Miss Metropolitan” by Carolyn Ferrell, narrated by the fabulous Bahni Turpin. It is noted that the audio comes with a PDF of photos that I’m assuming Ferrell used in the printed version of her novel. Some of the photos are haunting in many ways, and some are “artsy”. I......more

Goodreads review by Danielle on September 11, 2022

Note: I received a free copy of this book. In exchange here is my honest review: This was a disturbing read. 😬 Three girls abducted and tied together and tortured for a long period of time. ⛔️There are a ton of abuse triggers in this read. ⛔️ Other reviewers state that the author was inspired by the......more

Goodreads review by John on April 17, 2023

This is a brilliant debut novel from Carolyn Ferrell, which deserves a lot more attention than it is getting. Dear Miss Metropolitan deals with the physical and psychological trauma of three girls violently kidnapped and held hostage in a "House of Horrors" in Queens. The experimental form of the pro......more

Goodreads review by Taylor | ePub Princess on August 03, 2022

As a Cleveland native, I’m very familiar with the Ariel Castro case. There are many correlations between that case and the fictional case that this book is based around. Three girls: Fern, Gwinnie, and Jesenia are held hostage by a sadistic man we only know as Boss Man. We follow their lives before......more


Awards

  • NPR Best Book of the Year
  • PEN Literary Award - Finalist