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    My Sunshine Away
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    My Sunshine Away
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    My Sunshine Away
    Audiobook10 hours

    My Sunshine Away

    Written by M. O. Walsh

    Narrated by Kirby Heyborne

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    "A tantalizing mystery and a tender coming-of-age story...Unputdownable."-Oprah.com

    In the summer of 1989, a Baton Rouge neighborhood best known for cookouts on sweltering summer afternoons, cauldrons of spicy crawfish, and passionate football fandom is rocked by a violent crime when fifteen-year-old Lindy Simpson-free spirit, track star, and belle of the block-is attacked late one evening near her home. As the dark side of this idyllic stretch of Southern suburbia is revealed, the close-knit neighborhood is irreversibly transformed.

    In My Sunshine Away, M.O. Walsh brilliantly juxtaposes the enchantment of a charmed childhood with the gripping story of a violent crime, unraveling families, and consuming adolescent love. Acutely wise and deeply honest, it is an astonishing and page-turning debut about the meaning of family, the power of memory, and our ability to forgive.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 10, 2015
    ISBN9780698190467
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for My Sunshine Away

    3.5/5

    201 ratings29 reviews

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    • 3/5
      An interesting concept of a book, with the male narrator being a suspect in the rape case that is the subject of the story. It drags on too long, however, and a lot of the flashbacks and information are unnecessary, and detracted from the story rather than made it richer. The ending was a little too anti-climactic, but overall I liked Walsh’s writing and would try another book by him.
    • 5/5
      15 year old Lindy Simpson raped in summer of 1989 in quiet Baton Rouge neighbourhood. Narrated by unnamed teenage male neighbour across the street.
    • 5/5
      A truly stunning and endlessly surprising novel. Beyond the beautifully plotted and paced story, with just the right about of subtext and perfectly timed reveals, I'm struck by Walsh's prose in particular. Although never overly showy or self-aware, it's lyric in all the right ways. (Chapter 32 is something of a masterclass.) The word choices are precise and delicate and delightful, and I could have gone on reading for a long time. He manages to find the perfect balance between elegy and suspense, meditation and mystery. It is at once deeply psychological and completely irresistible. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      I really loved this book. Our narrator, writing as an adult in present day, tells us of his teenage years in Piney Creek Louisiana, centering on the summer of 1989 when his neighbor, Lindy, was raped. This book is really two things: it's a mystery surrounding the crime and who could have committed it and it's a reflection on memory and how we are affected by them.First, the mystery. It was compelling and there are clues peppered throughout. I thought I knew what would happen but nothing (and everything) was as it seemed. There are a few creepy scenes (not horror or paranormal creepy, just voyeuristic and invasive) and the book is very atmospheric. That brings me to my next point. I loved the description of the setting. I felt like I was experiencing a Louisiana summer; like I could really feel the heat and humidity, see the moss hanging from the trees, feel the sweat dripping, and taste the lemonade. Even the mood of the community as a whole was felt. The author really created a complete sense of place. Where this book really shines, though, is in the recollection of youth. The narrator describes his memories with a nostalgia that is very relatable but also with a wisdom that can only come from a lifetime of experiences. Anyone who grew up in the 80's will recognize references to the Challenger explosion, Jeffrey Dahmer, talking for hours on the phone before there was internet and call waiting, running around the neighborhood until (and sometimes after) dark with friends. In many ways, the 80's marked the death of innocence for our society in general, and this narrator's reflections on his childhood mark the death of his. It's a great parallel. Many readers may be put off by how this book is paced and structured. It's told in bits and pieces that are mostly in order but occasionally veer off onto what seem like unrelated events, much like the recollection of memory. Some readers may feel these are parenthetical scenes but I felt that they all tied in to the overall growth of the narrator. Indeed, this book is much more about the narrator than it is about Lindy and her rape. Overall, I really loved this one. The nostalgia, the atmosphere, the importance of memory viewed from a distance of years, all of these things were great. I loved the writing. I loved that the author captured the feeling of adolescence so perfectly. I found it very hard to put this book down and highly recommend it. In fact, my original rating after finishing was 4 stars but I just can't stop thinking about this one and the more I think about it the more I love it. For that reason, I'm bumping this up to 5 stars and I'm pleased to own a physical copy for my bookshelf.I received a copy of this book for free from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.
    • 2/5
      Exasperated, annoyed, impatient ...... those are the feelings I had while reading this book, which is definitely contrary to the majority of the other reviewers' opinions. Every time the author got to a fairly important moment, he would veer off on some mostly irrelevant tangent, trying to prolong the "suspense" I guess. The ending was anticlimactic, particularly after sitting through 300 pages of self-indulgent prattling.
    • 4/5
      Guilt, innocence and obsessive love rule in this southern masterpiece that is reminiscent of "Stand By Me" or any Pat Conroy novel. We smell the heavy scent of magnolia and feel the steamy heat while reading about an innocent Baton Rouge of the 90's. Kids play in the streets after dark and there are yes ma'ams and no sirs heard in every household. But kids grow up and sometimes evil can lurk in even the safest neighborhood and that is where a tragic rape occurs that will affect the neighborhood forever. Three suspects are being questioned and held in review and it is one of them who is the narrator of this tale.He has grown up obsessed with the girl next door, Lindy, and it is this obsession, protection and trying to do the right thing that will totally consume him well into adulthood. It is only her acceptance and approval that will free him or crush him completely. Beautifully written with lush language that will make even the most hardened Yankee feel like they grew up in the South. Thank you to the publisher for an advance copy of what will be the first of many from this debut author.
    • 4/5
      This is a story of a girl who is raped when she is only 15 years old on a seemingly idyllic street in suburban Louisiana in the late 1980s, and its narrator is one of the four suspects.The narrator has a crush on Lindy, the girl who later is raped in their neighborhood. As the book continues, we are introduced to an array of characters, older neighbors, classmates, siblings, etc that are connected to the crime. Not til the very end are things revealed to the narrator and the reader.The writing is engaging, a real page turner. The author's descriptions of a 1980's neighborhood in Louisiana and being a teenager at this time before the onset of cellphones and laptops, was spot on.This is only the first book by this author, but I can't wait to read more.
    • 5/5
      My Sunshine Away is a moving and poignant coming of age narrative from debut author M.O. Walsh.The unnamed narrator of My Sunshine Away is fourteen during the summer of 1989. He lives with his mother in middle class Baton Rouge, where he rakes leaves, plays baseball in the streets, chases the ice cream van and spies on the object of his obsessive crush, fifteen year old Lindy Simpson. One late summer evening his suburban idyll is disrupted when Lindy is is attacked on their street on her way home from a track practice.This is a story of memory and hindsight, innocence and heartache, blessings and tragedy. Walsh brilliantly recalls the emotional intensity of adolescence, the confusion, the conviction, the naivete, and the regrets that can linger into adulthood. He highlights the joy and melancholy of first love, the shock of first disappointments, and the way in which these things stay with us.The intensity of the first person narrative is tempered slightly by the adult perspective as the narrator segues between recall and rumination of Lindy's rape and the aftermath."Every moment is crucial. And if we recognize this and embrace it, we will one day be able to look back and understand and feel and regret and reminisce and, if we are lucky, cherish."Referencing defining events such as the Challenger explosion, the capture of Jeffrey Dahmer and Hurricane Katrina, Walsh evokes nostalgia for long summer days on neighborhood streets, before the advent of cell phones and the internet. He explores the way in which the experiences of childhood and adolescence help to shape who we become as adults, but also the ways in which our memories of that time may be deeply flawed."But for every adult person you look up to in life there is trailing behind them an invisible chain gang of ghosts, all of which, as a child, you are generously spared from meeting."Evocative, tender and sincere My Sunshine Away is an absorbing, beautifully observed tale.
    • 4/5
      Well written and compelling coming of age story, set in 1989 Baton Rouge Louisiana. The author does a great job of getting inside the head of the young narrator, and bringing us into his family and neighborhood. The rape of young Lindy is only one of the secrets that this typical upper middle class neighborhood holds, and maybe not even the most heinous and disturbing. As our narrator grows up, he is able to get beyond his own perspective.

      I read this in one day; that's a high recommendation from me.
    • 4/5
      I read this on a recommendation from a good friend, and am glad I did. I loved how this story was written. I loved the juxtaposition of the picture perfect Baton Rouge neighborhood with the dark underbelly that lurks within every town, no matter how idyllic.

      I thought the language was beautiful, the jumps around in time frame fit the story well, and the main character was really honest and endearing.
    • 3/5
      I didn't love this like so many others did. Even though it was read by my favorite, Kirby Heyborne, I felt it was just long winded. Just rehashed the same things over and over. And there were some storylines like the Landrys which I didn't feel were well resolved.
    • 4/5
      I loved the story the book tells and its characters. It tells the story of a horrible event that takes place during a young boys early teen years. It examines many teen issues while also dealing with the subject of the story. It is interesting to see how the teens handle the issues in the story versus how the adults are dealing with it. I listened to this book and the narrator really brought the characters to life. I may have to go back and read it as well. There will be many customers that I can recommend this book to.
    • 4/5
      Excellent coming of age book.
    • 4/5
      I thouroughly enjoyed this novel. It was well-written, suspenseful enough to keep me engaged (but not a thriller), and fun to read as it was set at the same time I was in high school. I would highly recommend if you like coming of age stroreis with a little suspense.
    • 5/5
      Best book I have read thus far in 2015. A story of coming of age around tragedy so beautifully written I simply do not understand how anyone can give this book less than 4 stars, let alone less than 5! Set in Baton Rouge, LA, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it's the story of teenage boy coming to grips with the reality of the adult world -- but from the perspective of the narrator about 20+ years later, reliving those childhood memories and trying to make sense of them -- both how he remembered them as a teen and again now as an adult. The writing is wonderful, the story engaging, and the characters real. Certainly the novel is bittersweet, but isn't that what life is for most of us? Moments we cherish, moments we wish we had never lived, actions we should or should not have taken, things said... All I can say is that I wish there was more to read, and I am eagerly looking forward to Walsh's next effort.
    • 4/5
      completed 3.14.15,This is a very, very good coming of age novel. A 15 year old girl, Lindy Simpson, is raped in a safe, upper class suburban neighborhood. The narrator is one of many possible suspects. Not necessarily to the police but to his mother and to the reader as we discover how obsessed he was with Lindy. The story moves back and forth between the before and the after, the changes and difficulties in his own family. Occasionally, we are taken to irrelevant time periods like Hurricane Katrina as part of the author's attempt to make this novel appear Southern. This is suspenseful but not meant to be a fast-paced race to the end. We are given an intricate look at the story while at the same time we realize, like the narrator, how we miss the big picture when we are young. The actual identity of the rapist isn't relevant to the story, though we do learn who it was. The story lies within the journey of becoming an adult and how differently we see the past. Though not a tearjerker, I felt emotionally drained once I finished. I also really enjoyed that this story took place pre-cell phones, internet, social media.I really did enjoy this novel, I read it in an afternoon. But there are many critical reviews that greatly mischaracterize what this novel is about and make comparisons that really hurt and not help the author as there are bound to be disappointed readers expecting something else.This is NOT: Southern Gothic fiction, anything like The Help (which almost made me not want to read this) or Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil or To Kill A Mockingbird (sacrilege). The story takes place in an upper class white suburban neighborhood in Baton Rouge. It could have been any upper class white suburban neighborhood in any city in any state in the US, no matter how frequently the author refers to New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, LSU, or hot weather. The story was very well-written but as for creating an atmosphere of the South, it didn't happen. Most likely because it wasn't needed, it wasn't the point of the novel at all.
    • 5/5
      I really think that this is a near perfect book based on plot construction, characterization and its ability to keep me (the reader) interested. On the surface the novel is about a teen girl who is raped and the story is told through the perspective of a boy who is absolutely smitten by and obsessed with her. We are introduced to all the different people in town who would be possible suspects and their back stories as well as the very strange relationship the narrator has with Lindy, the victim. This book is great and a movie based on it is an absolute must in my opinion.
    • 3/5
      This book was pretty mediocre for me.

      It tells the story of Lindy and her rape, told through the eyes of a neighbourhood boy (who is 30 at the time of the narration) who remains nameless during the duration of the novel. I just did not gel with the main narrators voice. The narrative jumps around a great deal, often describing events that are not important to the overall plot.

      As expected, it is full of typical teenage angst and childish crushes. I found it quite boring at times and when the perpetrator was revealed it felt very anticlimactic. The whole story was just so they meh, nothing is really explained fully except excruciating details about how the wind sounds or how the mosquitoes hum.

      ***Disclaimer***
      I received this book for free through Goodreads first reads in exchange for an honest review. All opinions and views stated in this review are entirely my own.
    • 4/5
      This is a compelling first novel told from the perspective of a man reflecting on his memories as a 14-year old boy in Baton Rouge, LA during the aftermath of a brutal crime against a girl. It is not just any girl: it is a 15-year old neighbor girl who is the object of his obsessive infatuation. He is one of four suspects. The narrative flows smoothly with a few exceptions mostly pertaining to the history of Baton Rogue and the aftermath of Katrina. It is an engrossing mystery that reveals long-held neighborhood secrets.
    • 4/5
      A coming of age story that strips away the narrators innocence of growing up in a quiet suburb of Baton Rouge. I look forward to the authors next book.
    • 2/5
      story about a kid who was accused of raping a neighborhood girl.
    • 4/5
      Engrossing coming-of-age/whodunit. This was my first full audiobook in several years, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's not your typical whodunit with unrelenting suspense. Rather, the characters are more vivid, more real than most books in that genre. This is more of a treatise on adolescence and the secrets that hide behind the closed doors of a middle class neighborhood.
    • 3/5
      Follows the adolescence of a boy and his neighborhood through the rape of a teenage girl and it's aftermath.
    • 5/5
      The subject matter of My Sunshine Away is rough. Not only does it discuss Lindy’s rape and the lingering effects of it on her but also on the entire neighborhood, it also details the mindset of an adolescent boy. To make things even more uncomfortable for readers, the narrator is an adolescent boy obsessed with the very girl struggling to make sense of the crime done to her. This could turn My Sunshine Away into a very crude and uncomfortable story about one man’s biased version of a traumatic childhood event and other happenings during his formative years. Instead, under Mr. Walsh’s stellar prose, it becomes a stunning story about memory, family, secrets, and love.From the opening chapter, readers know that they are in for something different, as the narrator sets the tone for the story by declaring himself one of the four suspects of Lindy’s crime. While this should make him an unreliable narrator, it instead establishes his honesty and willingness to tell the whole truth, no matter how poorly it reflects on his thoughts and actions. He is totally besotted with Lindy but hides nothing from readers. He is quite frank about his lewd sketches, his spying, his fantasies, and his collection of Lindy memorabilia. Again, this should disgust readers and turn them against him. Instead, he is so open and ashamed looking back on his behavior as an adult that readers have no issues forgiving him. In many ways, his inability to hide even his most perverted fantasies make him rather pathetic as he desperately seeks Lindy’s approbation regardless of what it means to his family and friends.What prevents My Sunshine Away from being just another whodunnit about a long-ago unsolved crime is Mr. Walsh’s writing. Mr. Walsh captures the essence of what it was like to grow up during the early 1990s. The narrator’s recall of huge events like the Challenger tragedy, the discovery and subsequent trial of the Dahmer murders, and so forth are evocative and immediately place readers back to those key dates in their own lives. However, it is his description of the mundane details of life before computers, when watching TV was a family event and talking on the phone with a friend became a daily hours-long ritual, that truly take the stage. He captures the simultaneous hope and ennui that defined the generation that created grunge and does so with breathtaking clarity and a wonderful sense of nostalgia that befits someone reflecting on past events.The other element of My Sunshine Away which makes it truly spectacular is Mr. Walsh’s use of Baton Rouge as its own character. His descriptions of the steamy summer heat, the ritual of meals, the sense of neighborhood, as well as the dangers lurking in the woods, and the jungle-like quality of a neighborhood bordered by swamps are lovingly detailed. More importantly, they are so vibrant that readers will find it effortless to imagine the neighborhood and its eclectic inhabitants. While the basic plot could occur anywhere in the world, there are certain elements unique to Baton Rouge which make it impossible for the story to unfold anywhere else.My Sunshine Away has some of the most gorgeous, poetic sentences one can find in a novel. Mr. Walsh has a way of filling a simple statement with a thought so profound that readers will automatically pause to reflect. Similarly, the trip down memory lane to the late 1980s and early 1990s are poignant but exquisitely detailed to make them fun. All the while, the narrator earns a special spot in a reader’s heart for being so guilt-ridden by his adolescent thoughts and behaviors that it is easy to forgive him all his transgressions, real or imagined. My Sunshine Away is the type of novel that will astound readers with its simple but powerful message and well-crafted delivery.
    • 5/5
      M. O. Walsh’s remarkable and utterly original debut novel, “My Sunshine Away,” is a lush literary hybrid. On one hand, it is an insightful, emotionally moving, and realistic coming-of-age novel; one the other, it is an eerie, suspense-filled Southern Gothic mystery. It filled me with awe. The novel is exquisitely written and full of atmospheric and sensory delights. It’s also so wise and wonderful, I immediately wanted to reread it, so I could deconstruct it and discover exactly how the author pulled it all off so masterfully. “My Sunshine Away” is set in suburban Baton Rouge, Louisiana, during the sultry summer of 1989. The book’s story is told by an unnamed narrator, writing from a midlife perspective, about one of the major events from his childhood that shaped his character. That event was the rape of a 15-year-old neighbor girl named Lindy Simpson. The rape happened when the narrator was 14 years old. The narrator had a crush on Lindy for over a year by the time the rape occurred. He knew that a lot of other boys in the neighborhood felt the same way. After all, Lindy was beautiful, blond, outgoing, and full of fun. But after the rape, the narrator’s crush turned into an abnormal obsession. This transition is important; pay close attention to it. Why did the boy develop this unhealthy obsession? It’s the deep psychological riddle that drives the sage coming-of-age novel, and the stunning, compassion-filled reveal at the end. It’s that moving ending that pushes this book over the edge into the realm of literary virtuosity. The mystery of who committed the rape is also obviously important—after all, it drives most of the novel’s frightening Southern Gothic suspense elements. This mystery shows how one horrible crime can ripple through a community over a few years to cause a wide variety of crises and catharses. All that makes an extraordinary story, involving many authentic secondary characters and some intriguing emotional and dramatic subplots. When a novel like this spends a great deal of space focusing on various major contemporary horrors—like the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, Hurricane Katrina, and the sickening stories surrounding the arrest of mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer—you’ve got to suspect that something really dreadful is going to happen. And the ending lives up to this promise. But there’s another surprise ending after the first, and that one is really the key—the one that ties the entire book together as a powerful whole. Walsh writes lush sensual literary prose. He also creates authentic characters. In this book he perfectly captures the egocentrism, idealism, and insecurities of teenagers as well as the anguish of parents trying their best to love and support their children as best they can given their own psychological limitations. The book asks brilliant moral questions and provides stirring hints at possible empathetic answers. Book club readers will have a field day discussing this novel. In summary, this book describes one young man’s difficult journey from the egocentrism, idealized reality, and self-deceptions of youth to the altruism and realistic empathy of maturity. Not all people are able to make this transition—to develop the ability to see life easily from another’s perspective—but those who do certainly help make this world a better and more humane place. That is the reason this book was written. And that is one of the major reasons why you, too, should consider reading it. It is an important book and a remarkable debut. I’m confident it will remain one of the best books I’ll read this year.
    • 5/5
      My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh is exceptionally atmospheric, set in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and tackles several large issues; coming of age, violent crime, destruction of families, and forgiveness and intertwining each major issue and crafting one of the most extraordinary fictional stories I have read recently. In the summer of 1989, 15-year-old Lindy Simpson is raped near her home which sets off a chain of events, to be expected, and yet in a stroke of genius, Walsh chose as his narrator not only one of the adolescents questioned in Lindy’s rape, but also one who grew up with and obsessed over his unrequited love for Lindy. It is through the narrator’s stories going back through childhood before the crime and after that the reader gets a feel for life in Louisiana as well as the character’s lives. My Sunshine Away is an exceptional book, deeply atmospheric, nostalgic for not only the narrator, but for those of us who grew up prior to cordless phones and the Internet. Walsh’s ability to draw the reader into the story so intensely and so quickly is one example of the exceptional writing. The characters become real to the reader, the narrator sporadic thoughts and feelings capture the essence of an adolescent quite well. Going into the book I was not certain how well I would enjoy it, coming of age stories are not my favorite subject matter, however this book is so much more and I found myself not wanting to set the book down. I highly recommend My Sunshine Away to all readers, but especially to those in book discussion groups.
    • 4/5
      I received this book from BEA 2014 and immediately wanted to read it. The book is centered around Lindy, a 15 year old who is raped down the street from her childhood home while she is bicycling home from running track. Set in Baton Rouge, her young neighbor is obsessed with both her and the crime, and as they grow older he becomes increasingly more obsessed. The story focuses on each person who may have committed the crime and why, taking us through a shattered neighborhood and varied childhoods. Baton Rouge takes on a life of its own, as he describes the way their lives all played out. The story moves at a quick pace, and I found myself reading it for hours at a time. However, the narrator was incredibly creepy and I struggled with this a bit. Hiding in a tree watching her, waiting for her to pass by, changing his looks to something she may like…these are all his tricks, and it leads you to believe that even if he didn’t commit the crime, he probably shouldn’t be around Lindy either way. However, in the end he IS just a teenage boy in "love"/obsession, and so a lot of his follies are forgivable yet still unnerving. I can’t wait to see what else MO Walsh has in store – for a debut, it’s remarkable.
    • 4/5
      I had a love-hate relationship with this book. On the one hand it is exceptionally well written. It’s character building and description of the setting and the scenario are excellent. On the other hand, I seriously wanted to wring the unnamed narrator’s neck. He was totally obsessed with this girl yet for years never bothered to do anything about it. In addition, he seemed to be attracted to what he perceived as a neediness in Lindy which is a total recipe for disaster. Granted, my anger at him could be because I saw him making the same mistakes I made growing up, minus the binoculars and photo montages.Some reviewers were bold enough to compare this book to ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. Aside from the fact that both were about kids growing up in the South there was little common ground between the two. The one similarity that I did see and found striking was that in each book there was a neighbor’s house that emitted a sense of menace. In both cases, the father lurked about the neighborhood and frightened the children. Even the names, Radley in TKaM and Landry in MSA, are practically anagrams of each other.
    • 3/5
      An intense and disturbing book that is very well written. The unnamed narrator’s description of how he experienced things as an adolescent were well done, even though he seems to be rather eager to explain away his rather creepy and self-centered behavior. There was a portion of the middle of the book that went on too long, and the ending was a bit too much. The adult parts of it were interesting, but weirdly out of place. I imagine the story will stay with me for a while.