The Alarming Palsy of James Orr

Name: The Alarming Palsy of James Orr
Brand: HighBridge Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Tom Lee
ISBN: 9781684418336

Author: Tom Lee

Narrator: Matthew Lloyd Davies

Unabridged: 3 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Highbridge Audio

Published: 01/22/2019

Categories: Fiction, Family Life, Psychological

Synopsis

James Orr—husband, father, reliable employee and all-around model citizen—awakes one morning to find half his face paralyzed. Waiting for the affliction to pass, he stops going to work and wanders his idyllic estate, with its woodland, uniform streets and perfectly manicured lawns. But there are cracks in the veneer. And as his orderly existence begins to unravel, it appears that James himself may not be the man he thought he was.

A deeply unsettling story of creeping horror that consistently confounds expectations, The Alarming Palsy of James Orr introduces a writer of extraordinary and disturbing talents.

About Tom Lee

Tom Lee's fiction and personal essays have appeared in The Sunday Times, Esquire, Prospect, The Dublin Review, and Zoetrope, among others. He is also the author of Greenfly, a collection of short fiction. His work has been shortlisted for The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award and long-listed for The Notting Hill Essay Prize. He currently teaches undergraduate and postgraduate creative writing at Goldsmiths College in London.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Blair on September 05, 2018

Rather banal tale of a man whose life begins to come apart after he is afflicted by Bell's palsy. By far the strongest element of this book is the palsy itself – Lee's descriptions of James's condition effectively detail what it's like both physically and emotionally, and provoke sympathy for an oth......more

Goodreads review by Eric on December 11, 2017

I’ve always suffered from an irrational fear that one day I’ll wake up and the people I love most won’t recognize me. Something like this happens to the protagonist of Tom Lee’s debut novel “The Alarming Palsy of James Orr”. He wakes up one day to find he’s suffering from Bell’s palsy which causes a......more

Goodreads review by Alan on October 27, 2021

things go wrong in the suburbs part 3,000 very well done......more

Goodreads review by Ian on March 14, 2018

The Alarming Palsy of James Orr starts off as a story about a man going through a mid-life crisis, triggered by a sudden case of Bells Palsy, and then, over the course of the short novel, becomes something darker and bleaker. James’ transition from competent, middle-class father and husband in a well......more

Goodreads review by Jessie on February 28, 2021

3.5, rounded up. I was originally going to round down... but writing this review made me realize some more sublter themes I hadn't picked up on while I was actually reading and it made me appreciate the story a little more. A man's life begins to unravel after he develops Bell's Palsy. The writing st......more