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    The Nobodies Album: A Novel
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    The Nobodies Album: A Novel
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    The Nobodies Album: A Novel
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Nobodies Album: A Novel

    Written by Carolyn Parkhurst

    Narrated by Kimberly Farr

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From the bestselling author of The Dogs of Babel comes a dazzling literary mystery about the lengths to which some people will go to rewrite their past.

    Bestselling novelist Octavia Frost has just completed her latest book-a revolutionary novel in which she has rewritten the last chapters of all her previous books, removing clues about her personal life concealed within, especially a horrific tragedy that befell her family years ago.

    On her way to deliver the manuscript to her editor, Octavia reads a news crawl in Times Square and learns that her rock-star son, Milo, has been arrested for murder. Though she and Milo haven't spoken in years-an estrangement stemming from that tragic day-she drops everything to go to him.

    The "last chapters" of Octavia's novel are layered throughout The Nobodies Album-the scattered puzzle pieces to her and Milo's dark and troubled past. Did she drive her son to murder? Did Milo murder anyone at all? And what exactly happened all those years ago? As the novel builds to a stunning reveal, Octavia must consider how this story will come to a close.

    Universally praised for her candid explorations of the human psyche, Parkhurst delivers an emotionally gripping and resonant mystery about a mother and her son, and about the possibility that one can never truly know another person.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 15, 2010
    ISBN9780307714725
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Nobodies Album

    4/5

    196 ratings44 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher.Carolyn Parkhurst always manages to come up with truly creative and original ideas for her novels. Best known for her book DOGS OF BABEL, Parkhurst returns with the NOBODIES ALBUM. Many will view this book as a mystery but it is not. It is a story of relationships, specifically those between mothers and sons. Successful novelist Octavia Frost is on her way to her publisher to drop off her latest novel when she hears the news that her estranged rock star son, Milo, has been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend. Octavia's husband and young daughter both died when Milo was 9. This tragic event altered the course of their relationship and in his mid-twenties, Milo refuses to have any more contact with his mother. Octavia heads to California to be by her son's side while not knowing whether he will even speak to her. Octavia tries to figure out what really happened between her son and his girlfriend while attempting some sort of reconciliation. Her great attempt at getting her son back lies in her latest novel called THE NOBODIES ALBUM which is really a collection of rewritten endings for all of her previous books. The original and rewritten endings are interspersed throughout the book. The complexity of the relationship of mother and son and the effects of tragedy and grief on individuals form the center of the story.Other reviewers have mentioned two main flaws in this book: it isn't a very good mystery and the inclusion of the rewritten endings from THE NOBODIES ALBUMS which many readers find distracting and pointless. I don't agree with either criticism. This isn't a mystery book so it wasn't important to me how effective the "mystery" was. I think the inclusion of the rewritten endings was KEY to the story. I think many of us would love the opportunity to rewrite portions of our lives and the impulse must be doubly enticing for a writer. The rewritten chapters reveal a great deal about Octavia and how she dealt with her grief after the death of her husband and daughter. The rewrites reveal her attempt at changing history and healing her troubled relationship with her son. To me, they added a great deal to the story. Especially when you think about how much of themselves authors put into their work. BOTTOM LINE: Highly recommended. An intriguing and moving story about the troubled relationships we sometimes have with those who are close to us and the profound effects that grief and loss can have on people. One of my favorites this year!
    • 4/5
      Olivia Frost lost her husband and young daughter in a terrible accident, many years ago. More recently, she lost her grown-up rock star son, too, when he suddenly stopped talking to her. So now she tries to content herself with her life and her writing, though all her novels seem, inevitably, to feature dead children, and lately she's decided she wants to re-write the endings of them all. Then her son is accused of murdering his girlfriend, and she feels compelled to reach out to him.It's a very multi-layered novel. Mostly, it's a sort of introspective drama about motherhood and grief. But it's also a little bit of a murder mystery, although I imagine anyone reading it only for that part of things is going to be a little disappointed. And it's also a slightly meta-feeling exploration of writing and storytelling. It all works together really well, I think. Not flawlessly, perhaps, but very successfully, nonetheless. I feel like I've been floundering around a bit lately, trying to find the right book to distract myself from a slightly stressed-out mood, to give me something absorbing to think about. Turns out, this was exactly what I needed. Whether or not it's perfect, I liked it a lot, and I'm definitely going to be seeking out more books from this author.
    • 5/5
      The Nobodies Album is a very entertaining novel. The straight forward narrative style reminds me of Pat Conroy in his novel, Beach Music. The structure also is similar to the Conroy book, including breaks in the story to introduce several other stories. The narrator, Octavia, is a writer who has written novels herself and attempts to rewrite the endings from a new point of view given her current level of development. The rewrites add to the main story and are influenced by Octavia's memories of her loves and losses as a mother. I looked forward to the novels with the plots presented briefly and the endings rewritten. They built on each other and helped in understanding the characters' motivations in the mystery story involving Octavia's rock star son and an accusation of murder.Octavia examines her creative work and daily life focusing on observations of coincidence and synchronicity, women and children, loss and endurance, immediate reactions and dissociations, creative drive and withdrawal, and commitment and acceptance. A common thread through these themes is that we are the result of "all those years of accumulated decisions and acts of chance." We can revisit our past and see it in a new light, but rewriting it does not change the effects the past has had on us. Instead we should gain new insight and think about our personal histories but "write" something new to reflect our evolution as individuals.This very good novel requires concentration on the inserted novel rewrites as they set the stage for the only possible ending to the mystery story. Ms. Parkhurst gives credit in the dedication to her own father for teaching her how to tell a story. She learned her lesson well.
    • 4/5
      Ever since Edgar Allan Poe, who invented the detective story, we have known that a good murder mystery can also be good literature. Even so we tend to forget, isolating mysteries into their own genre and their own sections of book stores and libraries. Once in a while someone like Carolyn Parkhurst comes along to remind us of what we already knew.Her 2010 novel “The Nobodies Album” is a low-key murder mystery with literary aspirations (just as her previous novel “The Dogs of Babel” was a sci-fi/horror story with literary aspirations). The narrator and heroine is Octavia Frost, a successful novelist who is rethinking her career just as she is rethinking her life. The new book she is about to deliver to her publisher is actually a collection of revised endings to all of her previous books. Couldn't they have happier endings?Her own life, for all her literary success, has been less than happy. Her husband and daughter died accidental deaths some years before, and for the past four four years she had been estranged from her son, Milo, now one of the country's most popular rock stars. He had read something in one of her novels that, for good reason, he took very personally.It takes a murder to bring mother and son back together. Milo has been arrested for killing his girlfriend. He was intoxicated and remembers little about that night, but he is discovered with her blood all over him and no other person in the house.Octavia doesn't see herself as an amateur sleuth and doesn't act like one. She is just a mother who doesn't believe her own son could do such a thing and so looks for any other possible explanation for what happened that night. Can this story, too, have a different ending than the one that seems so obvious?This idea of changing endings replays again and again throughout the novel, including when an aging rock star talks about rerecording some of his biggest hits. Can you go back and change what has already taken place, or must an ending be changed before the ends comes?In the end, “The Nobodies Album” succeeds better as a murder mystery than as a literary work, yet both attempts are hindered by Parkhurst's inclusion of the last chapters of Octavia Frost's novels as well as the proposed revisions. Some of these are interesting enough, but they all interrupt her story more than they contribute to it.
    • 4/5
      3.5 starsOctavia Frost is a successful author, with eight published novels. She has decided she’d like to rewrite the endings for all of them, and publish that as a collection. Her rock star/musician son, Milo, and she have been estranged for four years, but she feels she must go to him when he is arrested on suspicion of murdering his fiancee. I much preferred the mother/son story to the multiple books and rewritten endings by Octavia Frost. I listened to the audio and often missed too much of those rewritten stories to really follow them. I did enjoy the murder mystery, though, and Milo and Octavia coming closer together again.
    • 3/5
      A mystery and an exploration of a mother/son relationship. Also about recreating the past and so about time, alternative endings. Lacks the cohesive brilliance of _The Dogs of Babel_.
    • 4/5
      just started and i love it so far. doesn't seem as dark as her other books but the protagonist has draw me in. probably will finish this by Monday. it was a great read a mystery 9which i figured out ) and some relationship drama between mother and son and best friends and illegitimate children. wonderful.
    • 5/5
      Carolyn Parkhurst makes me want to write novels. "The Dogs of Babel," one of my favorite books, reads like it was written effortlessly.

      The skill involved in crafting "The Nobodies Album" is a little more apparent. The premise is that best-selling author Octavia Frost has decided to rewrite the endings of each of her books. The original and revised endings are woven throughout the book, as Octavia reconnects with her estranged son, a rock star, who has been accused of murdering his girlfriend.

      My only criticism of "The Nobodies Album," is that the original endings don't read to me like actual book endings. There's a lot of recap to give readers the sense that they've read the entire book. I'm willing to forgive that, however, because for the most part, I found the excerpts from her fictional books as engaging as the plot of the "real" novel.

      I didn't care for the excerpts from the first two novels Octavia rewrites, and worried that as I got to these dramatic interludes that I'd get tired of the formula and want to skim through them. But that wasn't the case. Within "The Nobodies Album," Parkhurst has developed four or five other multi-layered, revelatory novels that enhance Octavia's story.

      The murder mystery itself is not exactly Hitchcockian, but "The Nobodies Album" is more of a family drama than it is a mystery novel. It's suspenseful and affecting. I loved it.

      Like the best novels, I found it difficult to put down, and was sorry when it ended.
    • 4/5
      For a book that I randomly picked off the shelf, this was really good. Surprisingly, in fact, because it seems a bit kitchy, gimmicky, one-dimensional, etc. But it manages to steer just shy of all those things and maintain reasonably dynamic and interesting characters who have some depth, without allowing them to become the stereotypes they're so close to being. I liked all the important characters, stayed intersted in the story, and even enjoyed the "excerpts" and "rewritten endings" of the main character's fictitious novels. Those excerpts, in fact, are excellent short stories -- they convey a larger story in a very short space and conclude the story at the same time. They're sufficiently varied, and it wasn't until one of the final ones that I was able to "predict" their relevance to the story (but maybe I wasn't paying enough attention). The excerpts alone are worth reading, but the bit of murder mystery that reunites Octavia and Milo is also just shy of melodrama to hold my attention.

      I really enjoyed this one.
    • 1/5
      Heavy-handed, trite, predictable, and boring.
    • 3/5
      Not a bad story. I was mostly interested in the main storyline... the stories that were written by the main author with the rewrites felt completely unnecessary and just a way to pad the word count.
    • 3/5
      Kind of like wandering into an Escher drawing. You can almost start and go anywhere and end up in sort of the same place. Appreciably well executed.
    • 5/5
      Well-known author Octavia Frost has re-written the last chapters of all her previous novels and compiled them in her newest book, The Nobodies Album. When she arrives in New York to drop the finished manuscript off at her publisher's office, she learns that her son Milo has been arrested for murdering his girlfriend Bettina. Even though Octavia and her famous musician son have been estranged for four years, she immediately heads to California to offer her help. She discovers that Milo can't remember the events of the night his girlfriend died and doesn't know whether or not he was the one who killed her.This book is so much more than a murder mystery. Interspersed throughout the main story are exerpts from Octavia's other books that include the original last chapter and the new, revised last chapter. Octavia talks about how authors put themselves in their work whether they realize it or not. The excerpts from her other books serve to illustrate what regrets Octavia has about her life. I thought this was a unique method of telling a story and I really liked it.The murder mystery story-line was exciting and kept me guessing up until the end. Additionally, I appreciated the realism of Octavia and Milo's relationship. They were both well-developed, layered characters - relatable but not always likeable. Flashbacks to when Milo was a child help the reader understand why his relationship with his mother is so complicated today. I highly recommend The Nobodies Album.
    • 5/5
      This is a novel with an intriguing, quite literary structure. It is full of little stories, some of them arising from Octavia Frost's latest project, a book that will contain rewritten endings for each of her seven novels. Octavia just wishes it were so easy to rewrite some of the passages of her real life. The little stories in the novel endings tell us quite a bit about what has happened to Olivia in real life, and it seems that she has told the reader more than she really meant to reveal.And then there is the main thread that holds THE NOBODIES ALBUM together, the story of Octavia and her son Milo whom she hasn't spoken to in a number of years. Milo is popular rock musician whose lyrics contain lines which recreate for Octavia glimpses of the tragedy that they have shared. It seems that Milo too is revealing more of himself in his "published work" than he means to.When Milo is accused of the murder of his girl friend, Octavia decides to do what a mother should do - defend her offspring. At the very least she wants to make sure that he isn't wrongly convicted of the murder.As I've said, a novel with an intriguing structure. Many bits to make you think too.
    • 5/5
      A widowed author, a rock star son, a murder mystery, unresolved family issues, this book kind of has it all. The story bounces back and forth between the main plot, which follows author, Octavia Frost, whose adult son, rock star Milo, is arrested for murder of his girlfriend and a secondary plot. Those portions are chapters from the author’s novels and are part of a collection called The Nobodies Album, which contains the rewritten endings of her books. At first it was jarring (at least on the audio) to switch between the fictional stories and the author’s life, but after awhile you get into each of the stories within the larger story. It’s really beautifully told. I found myself forgetting that Octavia isn’t a real author and I wanted to read some of her books, particularly The Human Slice. Part of me, the cynical side I suppose, thought maybe this was a way for the author to fit a bunch of ideas for books into a single book. But even as I say that, I realized that it still worked. It doesn’t feel forced, it just feels like an author reflecting on her books, her “children.” These things that she created and now wishes she could change. It’s about so much more than changing books though; it’s about living a life of regret and realizing you can’t change what’s already happened. I’ve never read anything by Parkhurst before, but I kept thinking about what an engrossing voice she has. I went back and forth on my rating, because though I really enjoyed it while I was reading it, I think I’ve grown to like it even more in the past few weeks. I keep thinking about new elements of the story and how they say so much more than they seem to at first. It’s almost like the book is just trying to tell a story, but it can’t help but be profound. It was an incredibly satisfying read. "Why do we think that knowing the events of someone's life gives us insight into the person they are? Certainly we react to the things that happen to us, we are not unchanged by them, but there is no format to it. You may know that a cascade of water can wear away stone, but you can't predict what shape the rock will take at any given moment."
    • 4/5
      Octavia Frost is a successful author, but there are times when she feels like a failure as a mother. Having lost her husband and daughter at a relatively young age, she was left to raise her young son alone. The son that she must admit she was never really very compatible with. And by all external appearances, she was a good mother. She cared well for her son, gave him every external thing he needed. But there has always been a chasm between them. Despite this, they have both succeeded. She is a successful author, he is a popular musician.Then comes the day when she learns that her son Milo has been arrested for the murder of his fiance. She rushes to his side, unsure of how to best help him, and together the two of them begin navigating the distance between them.This book started out a little slow for me, but eventually it picked up and pulled me in. The relationship between Octavia and Milo is very real and believable. Her love for him is apparent, and her desire to try to "make it all better" is genuine. But Milo harbors pain from the past, and hasn't yet found a way beyond it.The actual story is interspersed with the endings of many fictional stories, and then alternate endings for those stories. This is probably what dragged the story down. While I enjoyed a couple of the stories, most were pretty boring.All in all, this was a pretty good story. It was a bit of a roller coaster ride-- up, down, enjoyable, not so enjoyable. Overall it was pretty enjoyable, with the last third being the best of the book.
    • 4/5
      The Nobodies Album is my introduction to Carolyn Parkhurst's writing. I'm not sure why I had preconceived notions of Ms. Parkhurst's books, but I honestly can say I was never tempted to pick up one of her books. I'm definitely doubting my instincts because I really enjoyed The Nobodies Album.The Nobodies Album is told from the perspective of bestselling author Octavia Frost, the mother of famous rock star, Milo. Milo and Octavia have been estranged for 4 years, but when Octavia learns that Milo has been arrested for murder of his girlfriend she knows she has to be at her son's side.Carolyn Parkhurst's writing flows beautifully, and dives into the core of the characters. I love the way she describes characters feelings, and thoughts. As for the story it was part mystery, part life. When I say life I mean the ups and downs of family, tragedy, relationships..life. I definitely will be picking up previous books of Ms. Parkhurst. Looking forward to getting lost in her words.
    • 4/5
      Octavia Frost is in the act of delivering her latest book to her publisher, riding through Times Square, when she sees on the news crawl that her rock star son, Milo, estranged from her for many years has been arrested in connection with the death of his girlfriend. This begins a story that deals with the past as much as it does the present. Octavia's newest book - a compendium of rewrites of all of the endings of her previous novels - is interspersed between the chapters of the book. Can the past be rewritten? Can we change what has already happened? While attempting to support her son and figure out who killed his girlfriend, Octavia also seeks to mend the rift in their relationship. Parkhurst's writing is highly readable and her characters are believable. This is a beautifully written, thoughtful story.
    • 4/5
      Author Octavia Frost is estranged from her son, Milo and has been for a number of years. She’s tried to be a big girl about it, following her son’s career as a famous rock and roll musician from afar while she gets on with her own life, but one day, while on her way to her publisher’s office with her latest book project, she sees the news that her son has been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend play out in front of her on a New York City news crawl.How can Octavia deal with the crisis of Milo’s arrest? She is not and has never been a conventional mom; she and Milo have absolutely no relationship these days – not since Milo read one particular book of hers and then stopped talking to her. Will he let her back in his life now when everything has come completely unglued? Octavia doesn’t know but travels to San Francisco anyway, hoping that he will.Once she gets to SF and Milo, unexpectedly lets her back into his life , mother and son still have a very painful relationship and Octavia pretty much tippy toes around him as she tries to help him deal with the death of Bettina whom he still loves while trying at the same time to get to the bottom of what really happened on the night of the murder – the night that Milo hardly remembers at all. This is not a classic kind of murder mystery – it is more about Octavia’s and Milo’s troubles and the efforts made – mostly by Octavia - to work through things. She was never one of those natural mother-types and she has, in her writing, used a lot of the pain caused by the tragic deaths of her late husband and daughter in her writing. It hasn’t been deliberate, but it is there – even she has to acknowledge it – and it is that, apparently that caused Milo to stop talking to her. In The Nobodies Album, Parkhurst lets the reader see chapters of Octavia’s latest book proposal (it is to consist of the last chapters of her published books along with revised chapters showing how she would end them were they being published for the first time) and I found that bit to be neat and intriguing. I really liked getting to read the chapters of Frost’s ‘novels’ that Parkhurst lets us get a gander at. In fact, I liked almost all of them so much, that I wish that I could read the rest of the books that go with them – even though I know they don’t really exist. I especially wish I could read “The Human Slice” – where the world has been afflicted by a strange disease that causes most people to forget anything unpleasant and have nothing but happy memories. She does not give us a look at the revised chapter of the book that set Milo off so many years before – the one that caused the giant rift between him and his mother. That seemed a little strange to me, but in the end it did not matter.Over all, I enjoyed this book very much. It was a little quirky – not as quirky as The Dogs of Babel – but still not your average run of the mill The-Family’s-All-Torn-Up-So-Let’s-Forgive-Each-Other-And Put-Everything-Back-Together-The-Way-It-Used-To-Be kind of book. I will be very interested to see what she does next.
    • 4/5
      I started reading this book with really low expectations, but was pleasantly surprised. The main character in the book is an author whose estranged rock-and-roll superstar son is accused of murdering his girlfriend. The story was nice and at times even exciting, but my favorite thing about the book was the main character's idea for her next book. She decided to take the endings of all her previously published books and revise them. So throughout the book, there were "excerpts" from the ending of the main character's books (which were really more like short stories for the sake of our own understanding and enjoyment) and then the new ending. I found this a very interesting concept.
    • 4/5
      The Nobodies Album could be classified as a mystery novel. After all, the plot hinges on whether novelist Octavia Frost’s son Milo killed his girlfriend Bettina. Milo isn’t just any old accused murderer though. He is a famous rock star—the lead singer for a group called Pareidolia. His arrest for the murder of Bettina is national news. In fact, Octavia finds out about the murder on a news ticker in Times Square. She doesn’t hear it from Milo directly because they’ve been estranged for the past four years. Dropping everything (including her new novel called The Nobodies Album), Octavia flies to San Francisco to help … yet she isn’t even sure if Milo will talk to or see her. We follow Octavia as she attempts to reach out to Milo and uncover the truth about Bettina’s murder.However, there is much more going on in this book so that calling it a “murder mystery” doesn’t quite do it justice. Although the murder mystery propels the plot, there are several other story lines that I found just as compelling. We know from the beginning that Octavia and Milo are the only two surviving members of the Frost family, but we don’t quite know what happened to the other two members. Another mystery is what caused the estrangement between Milo and Octavia. As you read, Parkhurst doles out bits and pieces of information that provide answers to both of these lesser (but no less interesting) “mysteries.”The other aspect of the book that I enjoyed were the excerpts from Octavia’s latest book, which is also called The Nobodies Album. The concept of the book is that Octavia is rewriting the ending of all her novels. Throughout the book, we get to read the original ending and then the revised ending. These little “breaks” from the main narrative were interesting and intriguing, and I enjoyed them quite a bit. I thought adding this aspect to the book was ambitious of Parkhurst; it wasn’t something she needed to do.Another thing I liked about the book was the humor. I thought Octavia was pretty funny, and I was often amused by her thoughts. For example, she is constantly telling herself: “If this was a murder mystery, this is the part where I would talk to the doorman and discover the clue.” This kind of meta-narration (after all, this is a character talking about the writing of a murder mystery in a murder mystery)—as well as the fact that Octavia’s book and this book are both called The Nobodies Album—was appealing to me. It seemed to me like Parkhurst was having a little fun and challenging herself.Before The Nobodies Album, the only book I’d read by Carolyn Parkhurst was The Dogs of Babel, which was a wonderfully different story of a widow attempting to teach his dog to talk in order to discover if his wife committed suicide or died in an accident. It was a memorable and unique book, and Parkhurst managed to pull off what seems like a quirky premise and make it powerful, real and affecting. I think she managed to do the same with The Nobodies Album. Rather than just writing a straightforward murder mystery, she dabbles around with metafiction. It was a fun little experiment, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.If you’re looking for a literary fiction book that can double as a murder mystery, The Nobodies Album would be a good choice. It has a sly sense of humor and contains some interesting experiments by the author. I definitely plan to go back and read Parkhurst’s second novel, Lost and Found.
    • 5/5
      This book was so well written and very hard to put down. Author Octavia Frost has had a successful career but has been estranged from her son Milo, a famous rock star; they have grown steadily apart since the death of her husband and daughter when Milo was 9. But tragedy is about to bring them back together again when Octavia hears a news report that her son has been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend.There are excerpts from Octavia’s books which all sound like books I would like to read! This was a story about family, failures, forgiveness and redemption. Through the words from the books Octavia has written you get glimpses into the life shared by her and Milo after the death of half of their family. Now Octavia and Milo need to work together to prove his innocence and repair their broken relationship.This was a very powerful book that flowed through the beautiful writing; it’s so much more than a mystery but the mystery was a good one. This was my first book by Carolyn Parkhurst but for sure won’t be my last.4 ½ Stars
    • 4/5
      Bestselling author Octavia Frost is in New York City to pitch her new book to her agent when she learns via the local news that her son, Milo, has been accused of murdering his girlfriend, Bettina. Though she and Milo have been estranged for four years, Octavia drops everything and travels to be with him in San Francisco. While she is learning about what her son’s been up to for the last four years, she is also on a quest to find out who really killed Bettina, and this takes her on a journey through her own past as well.I’d been looking forward to reading The Nobodies Album ever since I saw it listed in LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers directory. I did win it from there, but it came much later than expected so I actually read it via the audio version from the library. I really enjoyed the audio version and I’m sure that it is just as good, if not better, in print.One of the most compelling aspects of The Nobodies Album is Octavia herself. While she’s not the easiest character to like, it is clear that she has a lot of demons in her past and I really wanted to understand her better. Some details of her life are revealed up front, but others emerge slowly throughout the novel. I was particularly interested to find out why she and Milo didn’t speak for so many years and what really happened to her husband and daughter, both of whom died when Milo was a child. These pieces of the puzzle are uncovered slowly, which made me really enjoy the journey of getting to know Octavia.I probably should tell you that the book Octavia is pitching when she learns of Milo’s situation is also called The Nobodies Album, and it is a compilation of the rewritten endings of all of her novels. In Parkhurst’s novel, Octavia’s endings are interspersed throughout the text, giving the reader a sort of novel-within-a-novel experience, which was interesting for me. On the one hand, I certainly enjoyed getting to know Octavia better through her own writing. But on the other hand, these snippets had a way of distracting me and making me feel impatient to get to the “real” story. So I’m not sure that I loved this device, although it certainly added a little something extra to the book.The mystery of who killed Bettina really propelled me through the book. I was very interested to find out what really happened, and I had my suspicions, but it was interesting to see it come together and to find out, most importantly, why that person did what he/she did. I found this part of the book to be done really well.The Nobodies Album is a complex novel that has a lot of moving parts, all of which come together seamlessly in the end. There is a novel within this novel, too, and that made the entire experience just that more interesting. I enjoyed The Nobodies Album quite a bit and I’ll be reading more of Parkhurst’s novels whenever I can get my hands on them.
    • 5/5
      I received Carolyn Parkhurst’s new novel, “The Nobodies Album” as an Advanced Readers Copy. I had requested it because I recalled reading her previous book, “The Dogs of Babel” and thinking that while it was a bit quirky, I enjoyed it and I was eager to see what she had done in this novel. When I read the fly leaf and discovered that this was also a unique book in that it told the story of the main character’s (author Octavia Frost) reconnection with her estranged “rock star” son when he is accused of murdering his girlfriend while also interspersing chapters that rewrite the endings of her 7 novels, I thought… “This is going to be too much work to keep straight.” How pleasantly surprised I was to find that that was not the case. I enjoyed every page of this book!The story of her relationship with her son is a simple one. It is told in two voices…one the emotional longing of a mother to be reconnected with her son, the only child remaining after her husband and daughter die, and the voice of a writer, seeming to narrate the events as they unfold as if to give her some distance from the happenings to buffer her potential pain. I found Parkhurst’s style very engaging and it held my interest. The rewritten endings of the writer’s novels were not at all distracting. Each one was a little vignette of itself that made perfect sense in the context of the story. In the end, they demonstrated the fact that everyone lives with regrets of some kind. Everyone wonders if we had done things differently would we have had better outcomes. Everyone wishes that they might have the ability to rewrite an ending of their own.Reading this novel was like existing for a time inside a writer’s head and observing the world and the events while writing a narration, and seeing how clearly the real and the imagined intertwined and intersected. Overall, I found this novel redeeming and I was left with the optimistic awareness that all anyone wants in life is to be loved and accepted and that our greatest strength lies in giving those we love, just that!
    • 4/5
      The Nobodies Album is about the healing of a mother and son. After being estranged for several years the mother, Octavia, a famous writer learns her rock star son is accused of killing his girfriend. She immediately flies to San Francisco and tries to put the puzzle together of what really happened. An engrossing mystery and a book as good or better than her first novel "The Dogs of Babel"
    • 2/5
      While the premise was good, I had a really hard time with the format of this book. The almost senseless excerpts from the fictional narrator's books didn't add much value other than to disturb and depress. Frankly, I'm tired of authors who feel the need to garner attention with these sorts of gimmicks. That aside, Parkhurst does have a certain gift for creating a mood and sustaining it. That much, at least, was done well.
    • 4/5
      This book was well-written and enjoyable. Best-selling author Octavia Frost gets out of a cab in Times Square and sees the news in flashing lights that her rock-star son, Milo, has been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, Bettina. Octavia is in shock, and to further complicate matters, she and Milo have not spoken for four years. They have a tragic past that is slowly revealed through the investigation of Bettina's murder and through stories within the story. Octavia decides to rewrite the endings to all 7 of her books, and the original and the rewritten endings are included in this book. I actually loved the stories within a story but did find it somewhat confusing when the author returned to the main story. The " murder mystery" is definitely a small part of the book, figured it out early on. The main focus is the relationship between Octavia and Milo and what brought them to the point of not having any contact for years. My only complaint about the book would be that I felt the other characters were two-dimensional, not nearly as well-written as Octavia and Milo. Overall, a good read for fiction lovers.
    • 4/5
      I couldn't put this book down! The characters were addictive and the plot twisted. The ending made me want more of the story! Maybe there will be another book based on Octavia and Milo? One could hope.
    • 4/5
      Octavia Frost, a fairly ordinary novelist, has just written her most depressing book to date. Her new book, though, The Nobodies Album, is something completely different - she is rewriting the endings to all of her previous books. It's perfectly apt for this time in her life, as she wishes many parts of her life could have turned out differently. She can't begin restitution, however, until she hears shocking news: her rock star son Milo, from whom she has been estranged for years, has been accused of murdering his girlfriend. Octavia immediately flies to his home in California, not knowing what to expect, but ready for a change in her life and to support her son in the most difficult time of his. Interspersed with her story are the endings of all the books she's written, along with their new chapters, shedding ever-increasing light on the changing state of Octavia's emotions and outlook on life.Despite the fact that it's billed as a literary mystery, I found The Nobodies Album surprisingly satisfying. It's true that the mystery wasn't particularly mysterious; there is really only one person who has any motive for murdering Milo's girlfriend Bettina, so even I, notoriously slow when it comes to solving these things, figured it out before the characters did. But I quite enjoyed the story along the way. Many of the other story elements aren't revealed until further into the book, so it takes a while to truly understand how they have all gotten to this point. Seeing things from Octavia's point of view, as an older woman who has made mistakes, tied in with the obvious change of attitude she's had displayed through the old book endings spread throughout the story, made for a very emotive and moving read.Though beautifully written, Octavia's voice is slightly cold to start. I would encourage you to set that aside until the story gets more involved. She has reasons for acting the way that she does, and those reasons lead to the reveal of some fascinating, complex relationships - exactly what I look for in a book like this. The story takes a close look in particular at the relationships between mothers and their children; how even doing the best you can sometimes isn't quite enough, especially not in the formative years. It's true that Octavia and Milo have some terrible circumstances to deal with, but she realizes that their personalities - which are very similar - will clash while their lives are still normal. She isn't the kind of parent Milo needs, but she's the parent he has left, which leads to problems in their relationship that eventually result in their initial estrangement.The Nobodies Album is a thoughtful and at times suspenseful literary mystery. Highly recommended to those who enjoy well-written characters and don't mind the occasional break for another thread of the story.
    • 5/5
      I read "The Dogs of Babel" a while ago and still thought about that book and wanted to read something else by this author. I found this book had an imaginative plot and some interesting plot twists. I really enjoyed that the author showed a lot of what the characters felt in unconventional ways. I really grew to care about what happened to the characters. I really loved the way the characters were so intertwined through their backstories and through the murder case. She had some really interesting supporting characters. Roland and Kathy were both really interesting characters to me and I wanted to learn their back story and cherished each nugget of information that was given to me. The end of the book was a bit fractured (jumping from what happened in the future, then back to the past, and then further in the past, but I got what was going on (although it could have been a bit more concise and flow a bit better). The use of the plot line of Octavia's idea changing the endings to her books really showed a lot of the changes in her and her state of mind. I really enjoyed reading the endings of the fictional books and reflecting on what I knew of Octavia and her relationship with her son and the events that in some ways bound them and in others tore them apart. I looked forward to reading the endings. A great book for anyone that ever wondered about how a book could reflect its author.