The Big Girls, Susanna Moore
The Big Girls, Susanna Moore
List: $29.95 | Sale: $20.97
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The Big Girls

Author: Susanna Moore

Narrator: Robin Miles, Tom Stechschulte, Elisabeth Rodgers, Jenny Burleson

Unabridged: 6 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/01/2007

Synopsis

A crime of unfathomable horror has a ripple-like effect on four profoundly different souls. Helen, a troubled inmate at Sloatsburg women's prison, is serving a life sentence for the murder of her children. Dr. Louise Forrest, the recently divorced mother of an eight-year-old boy, has forsworn the Park Avenue practice for which she trained in favor of the chief of psychiatry job at Sloatsburg. Former New York City narcotics detective Ike Bradshaw is a sardonic corrections officer at the prison. And Angie, an ambitious Hollywood starlet, is intent on nothing but achieving fame. As the alternating narratives unfold, mysteries are revealed and the surprising connection between them is uncovered.

About Susanna Moore

Susanna Moore is the author of the novels The Big Girls, One Last Look, In the Cut, Sleeping Beauties, The Whiteness of Bones, and My Old Sweetheart, as well as two books of nonfiction, Light Years: A Girlhood in Hawaii and I Myself Have Seen It. She lives in New York City.

About Robin Miles

Robin Miles, named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, has twice won the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration, an Audie Award for directing, and many Earphones Awards. Her film and television acting credits include The Last Days of Disco, Primary Colors, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order, New York Undercover, National Geographic’s Tales from the Wild, All My Children, and One Life to Live. She regularly gives seminars to members of SAG and AFTRA actors’ unions, and in 2005 she started Narration Arts Workshop in New York City, offering audiobook recording classes and coaching. She holds a BA degree in theater studies from Yale University, an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama, and a certificate from the British American Drama Academy in England.

About Tom Stechschulte

Tom Stechschulte (1948–2021) was an acclaimed narrator and winner of the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration. He had been a college athlete and business major when a friend dared him to audition for a play. He got the part and traded the locker room for the dressing room, eventually taking him to New York City and to recording audiobooks.

About Elisabeth Rodgers

Elisabeth Rodgers is an actress and AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator. After graduating from Princeton University, she completed a two-year program at William Esper Studio, where she studied with Maggie Flanigan. Her audiobook narration training came from Robin Miles, who has also directed her in several productions. She has recorded dozens of books for a multitude of publishers.

About Jenny Burleson

Jenny Burleson holds a BFA in theater performance from the University of Michigan. She has appeared in national tours and numerous Off-Off-Broadway plays, performed at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and was a summer resident at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Alex

This is one of those books that the whole time I'm reading it, I kind of just wonder why it exists. My feelings ranged from bored to annoyed and not a whole lot else. My biggest issue was that it's told in first person by four narrators, each section lasting anywhere from a paragraph to a couple page......more

Goodreads review by Jessica

This story, told entirely in interwoven monologues in which the speaker is not identified, takes place in and around a women's prison in which Helen, who endured a lifetime of sexual abuse by her stepfather, is imprisoned for life for killing her children because "the Messengers" told her to do it.......more

Goodreads review by Debbi

THE BIG GIRLS doesn't grab you so much as seduce you into reading it. The story is about four people whose lives overlap in odd and interesting ways. It tackles issues like family, fortune (or the lack of it), coincidence and fate. The book starts off from the point of view of Dr. Louise Forrest, the......more

Quotes

“The story is told in the alternating voices of Helen, who has long suffered terrifying schizophrenic hallucinations and is serving a life sentence for killing her two small children; Helen’s psychiatrist…a corrections officer…and an ambitious Hollywood star whom Helen believes to be her sister. Moore gradually probes Helen’s psychosis to its horrifying origins, while also delivering a nuanced and devastating account of the fights, rapes, and alliances built from necessity that constitute prison life.”  The New Yorker

“A darkly seen and subtly realized intertwining of love and betrayal…The read is hypnotic, and the book hard to put down.” Chicago Tribune

“Mesmerizing…Moore spins an impressive, well-realized collection of voices and experiences.” San Francisco Chronicle

“In spare, yet hypnotic prose, Moore examines the bond between a young psychiatrist and a mentally ill patient in her devastating sixth novel, set at an upstate New York federal women’s prison…Moore deftly shifts perspective among her principal characters…as the action hurtles to an oddly satisfying resolution. Reading this heart breaker is like watching a train wreck while dialing for help on your cellphone. You can’t turn away.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“As the narrative alternates between four points of view, all equally commanding, Moore blurs the lines between criminals and their jailers, emphasizing their common humanity…Moore never shies away from the dark crimes at the center of the narrative, but she brings electrifying prose and a richly compassionate viewpoint to her meditation on both the dark and the generous impulses at work in all of us.” Booklist (starred review)

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