Wits End, Karen Joy Fowler
Wits End, Karen Joy Fowler
List: $20.00 | Sale: $14.00
Club: $10.00

Wit's End

Author: Karen Joy Fowler

Narrator: Bernadette Dunne

Unabridged: 8 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 04/01/2008


Synopsis

"[A] delightful and eccentric new tale"(The Boston Globe) from the author of the runaway bestseller The Jane Austen Book Club

In Karen Joy Fowler's newest novel, the bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club once again delivers top-notch storytelling, creating characters both oddball and endearing in a voice that is utterly and memorably her own. Wit's End is a clever, playful novel about finally allowing oneself to grow up-with a dash of mystery thrown in.

At loose ends and weary from her recent losses-the deaths of an inventive if at times irritating father and her beloved brother-Rima Lansill comes to Wit's End, the home of her legendary godmother, bestselling mystery writer Addison Early, to regroup...and in search of answers. For starters, why did Addison name one of her characters-a murderer-after Rima's father? But Addison is secretive and feisty, so consumed with protecting her famous fictional detective, Maxwell Lane, from the vagaries of the Internet that-rumor has it- she has writer's block. As one woman searches for truth, the other struggles to control the reality of her fiction.

Rima soon becomes enmeshed in Addison's household of eccentrics: a formerly alcoholic cook and her irksome son, two quirky dog-walkers, a mysterious stalker, the tiny characters that populate Addison's dollhouse crime-scene replicas, and even Maxwell Lane himself. But, wrapped up in a mystery that may or may not be of her own creation, Rima discovers to her surprise that the ultimate solution to this puzzle is the new family she has found at the house called Wit's End.

Playfully exploring the blurred boundaries between reality and virtual reality, fiction and fact, Karen Joy Fowler subverts the whodunit and gives us a thoroughly modern meta-mystery with wit, warmth, and heart.

About The Author

Karen Joy Fowler, a PEN/Faulkner and California Book Award winner, is the author of six novels (two of them New York Times bestsellers) and four short story collections. She has been a Dublin IMPAC nominee, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.Bernadette Dunne has been narrating for Books on Tape since 1997. She has been twice nominated for The Audie Award and has won six Golden Earphones awards. She studied at the Royal National Theatre in London and The Studio Theatre in Washington, DC. She has appeared at The Kennedy Center, The Washington Shakespeare Company, and Woolly Mammoth in Washington, DC. As a playwright, her work has been produced in New York, Seattle, and Washington, DC. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Andrea on April 01, 2013

4.5 stars I think, unfortunately, that this book is misreprented by the tag line on the cover and the publisher description; both those seem to promise an overarching mystery, a sinister encroachment of the both the past and of an author's fans. What it actually is - and succeeds quite well at - is th......more

Goodreads review by Cheryl on February 13, 2010

Reading this book made me wonder why Jonathan Lethem, Junot Diaz and the other fan boys get all the credit for playing with genre. Karen Joy Fowler's meta-mystery, about a woman trying to decipher the relationships between her family and a famous murder mystery writer, has just as many layers and as......more

Goodreads review by Jackie on May 13, 2008

The author of The Jane Austen Book Club has struck again--delightfully. This book is not a mystery but it IS about a mystery writer, her goddaughter, and some mysterious past events. There are multiple story lines in this book, including highly imaginative plots for the books written by Addison (thou......more


Quotes

Praise for Wit's End

“Fowler's understated wit and storytelling skills are in full flower.”—The Boston Globe

“[A] Rubik's cube of a book...this is venturesome work.”—The Seattle Times

“Fowler's subtle humor glides across these pages.”—The Washington Post

“[A] cyber-gothic-mystery-romance (you heard it coined here), and it's a lovely read.”—The Sunday Oregonian