The Kingdom, Emmanuel Carrere
The Kingdom, Emmanuel Carrere
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The Kingdom

Author: Emmanuel Carrère, John Lambert

Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki

Unabridged: 16 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/07/2017

Synopsis

A sweeping fictional account of the early Christians, whose unlikely beliefs conquered the worldGripped by the tale of a Messiah whose blood we drink and body we eat, the genre-defying author Emmanuel Carrère revisits the story of the early Church in his latest work. With an idiosyncratic and at times iconoclastic take on the charms and foibles of the Church fathers, Carrère ferries readers through his “doors” into the biblical narrative. Once inside, he follows the ragtag group of early Christians through the tumultuous days of the faith’s founding.Shouldering biblical scholarship like a camcorder, Carrère recreates the climate of the New Testament with the acumen of a seasoned storyteller, intertwining his own reckoning of the central tenets of the faith with the lives of the first Christians. Carrère puts himself in the shoes of Saint Paul and above all Saint Luke, charting Luke’s encounter with the marginal Jewish sect that eventually became Christianity and retracing his investigation of its founder, an obscure religious freak who died under notorious circumstances.Boldly blending scholarship with speculation, memoir with journalistic muckraking, Carrère sets out on a headlong chase through the latter part of the Bible, drawing out protagonists who believed they were caught up in the most important events of their time.An expansive and clever meditation on belief, The Kingdom chronicles the advent of a religion and the ongoing quest to find a place within it.

About Emmanuel Carrère

Emmanuel Carrère, one of France’s most critically acclaimed writers, is the author of several screenplays and novels, including Class Trip, The Mustache, and The Adversary, a New York Times Notable Book. He lives in Paris.

About John Lambert

John Lambert has translated Monsieur, Reticence, and Self-Portrait Abroad by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, as well as Emmanuel Carrère’s Limonov. He lives in Nantes with his wife and two children.

About Claire Bloom

Claire Bloom, CBE, is an English film and stage actress, known for leading roles in plays such as Streetcar Named Desire, A Doll’s House, and Long Day’s Journey into Night, along with nearly sixty films and countless television roles, during a career spanning over six decades. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2013 Queen’s birthday honors for services to drama.

About Stefan Rudnicki

Stefan Rudnicki first became involved with audiobooks in 1994. Now a Grammy-winning audiobook producer, he has worked on more than five thousand audiobooks as a narrator, writer, producer, or director. He has narrated more than nine hundred audiobooks. A recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, he was presented the coveted Audie Award for solo narration in 2005, 2007, and 2014, and was named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices in 2012.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Adam on April 27, 2019

A wild read, and a bold one, combining Carrere's own discovery and loss of Catholic faith in the early 90's with a detailed, lengthy re-imagination (a "non-fiction novel" is not quite accurate, it's more like creative non-fiction with lots of sources) of the life of Luke, and by extension, Paul, and......more

Goodreads review by Hans on January 04, 2019

Lo reconozco: me estoy volviendo un blando. He disfrutado como un niño con esta obra incalificable y monumental de Carrère, sin embargo, todo el rato me topaba con ciertas coletillas del autor como "ese niño con síndrome de Down que es el cristianismo" o la constante necesidad del autor de justifica......more

Goodreads review by Gabrielle (Reading Rampage) on April 22, 2022

While this book is on my “Goodreads made me do it” shelf, it would be more accurate to say “Charles made me do it”, and for that, I am grateful. It had been years since I had read Carrère, and I had forgotten how brilliant his writing is! Also, this is the second time in a few weeks that your recomm......more

Quotes

“An expert narrator can anchor the most meandering of books—as Stefan Rudnicki does with this one…Rudnicki’s steady pace and confident delivery provide the unifying thread…A provocative book, expertly read, this is a historical reconstruction for believers and, even more so, for nonbelievers. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.” AudioFile

“The need to understand the role you have in the larger human story is at the heart of this beautiful, difficult book. Difficult not in form but in feeling, The Kingdom manages to get at the contradictions of what we call intimacy.” New York Times

“A story of the telling of the world’s most famous story and an inquiry into how storytelling works that pushes, not infrequently, against the limits of what can be said.” New York magazine

“A masterwork…[a] tour de force.” Booklist (starred review)

“Memoir, fiction, and history combine in a stirring portrayal of the world of the first Christians…A passionate, digressive, empathetic history of religious rebels and the mystery of faith.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A frequently fascinating book written by a curious, sharp mind.” Publishers Weekly

“An extended look at a spiritual crisis of earlier years…Reads less like fiction than accessible, brightly penned history.” Library Journal

“Personal and rigorous, skeptical and open, casual and profound, and its speculative portrait of Saint Luke…is as compelling as any fictional life I’ve read lately.” Luc Sante, author of The Other Paris

“Carrère is one of our planet’s most compelling, inimitable writers, and The Kingdom is, in my view, his greatest book yet.” Tom Bissell, author of Apostle

Awards

  • AudioFile Earphones Award
  • New York Times Pick
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