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    Like Family: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Like Family: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Like Family: A Novel
    Audiobook2 hours

    Like Family: A Novel

    Written by Paolo Giordano

    Narrated by Chris Andrew Ciulla

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A young married couple hires a middle-aged widow during the wife, Nora's, difficult pregnancy; they don't realize the dominating force she will become in their small family. Signora A - maid, nanny, and confidante - becomes the glue in their household and, over time, the steady and loving presence whose benign influence allows them to negotiate the complexities of married life. The delicate fabric of the young family comes undone when Signora A is diagnosed with lung cancer.

    When she becomes too sick to work, both husband and wife feel the strain of her absence. This not a simple love story; it's a story about love in its many forms and how a capacity for love can give meaning to any existence, no matter how ordinary.

    ©2015 Paola Giordano (P)2015 Dreamscape Media, LLC

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateDec 1, 2015
    ISBN9781682620533
    Unavailable
    Like Family: A Novel
    Author

    Paolo Giordano

    Paolo Giordano is the author of the critically acclaimed international bestseller The Solitude of Prime Numbers, which has been translated into more than forty languages. He is the youngest person ever to win Italy’s prestigious literary award, the Premio Strega. Giordano has a PhD in particle physics and is now a full time writer. He lives in Italy.

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    Reviews for Like Family

    3.5/5

    64 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Very touching and moving book
    • 3/5
      A slim read with a powerful message about family and how one might become part of another. At times, the narrator felt detached and that left me feeling a bit flat.
    • 4/5
      3.5 They called her Mrs. A or Babette, never her real first name. She came into their lives when she was really needed, a widow that took care of his wife when she was confined to bed rest with their dirt child. She stayed and became nanny, cook, confidante and managed their lives with supreme efficiency. After eight years she came down with a serious illness and could no longer work.A quiet, simple novel about a woman who leaves a big hole in the lives of this family. a woman who became a friend, part of the family to the extent that she left a gaping hole in their lives. Not only did their son moss her terribly, but their lives no longer went smoothly, not even their marriage.What was unusual was that this was narrated by the husband who is a physicist, a man of science. It is told in a rather dispassionate manner, as if the husband is dissecting not only Mrs. A's effect on their loves but her personal life with the husband who had died many years preciously. It also made me think how often people are identified by the illnesses they have. Also the many different people that can make up a family.I loved the ending of this novel, simple but effective. Arc from publisher.
    • 4/5
      Third novel by this author and again spot on. Another social tragedy, it seems his forte, in a twisting and winding story about a couple struggling with everyday life, with their kid, with their relations, their jobs, almost with anything in fact, and a housekeeper, social assistant, relation consultant, problem fixer, well, almost everything as well, who keeps them going.But then this wonderfull misses, housekeeper, social assistant,...... becomes ill and everything changes. Giordano is a master in atmosphere descriptions and you can sometimes feel the tension, or the relief, like if they were tangible present on the pages of this book.The overall story is a bit too thin for this novel too get 4 stars but it is beautifully written and probably one of the better descriptions of modern marriage in which it is no longer evident (luckily) that women follow their husband. Doubts, worries and troubles all around. A more profound character elaboration and a deeper insight in their psyche would have lifted this book to excellent status. Still recommendable.
    • 4/5
      A husband and his wife, Nora, grapple with the death of their housekeeper in this elegiac novel.Mrs. A., or Babette, as our narrator fondly calls her after the character in a movie, has been a force in the lives of the young man, a physicist, and his wife, Nora, ever since she was hired when Nora was pregnant and on bed rest. The narrator explores the relationship they had with the housekeeper through her work, her cancer treatments, and ultimately her death, as well as more ignoring than acknowledging the strain in his marriage (the original Italian title, "Black and Silver" reflects this more than the English title, more suggestive of the housekeeper's role "Like" (but unlike) family. Based in part on the author's real experiences, though names and some situations have changed, this exploration of grief will ring true for many who have lost someone who touched their lives.
    • 4/5
      Mrs. A. was the only real witness of the enterprise we embarked on day after day, the sole observer of the bond that held us together {...} In the long run, every love needs someone to witness and acknowledge it, to validate it, or it may turn out to be just a mirage.I have a fondness for little “gems” of books -- novella-length, with more emphasis on character than plot, and emotionally/intellectually complicated enough to engage me over repeated readings. Some of my favorites are Tinkers, Einstein's Dreams, The Waitress Was New, The Spare Room, Glaciers, Last Night at the Lobster, The Summer Book. And now, this one.It’s about a man, woman and young son who face a cancer diagnosis in their household helper and touchstone, and discover the effects that her absence has on their family. As in Giordano’s previous The Solitude of Prime Numbers, there is isolation here, and melancholy, and prickly characters. And there is curious, philosophical searching, especially in the realm of memory and reality -- including a passage likely to resonate with readers’ own realities:The archaeologists of the future {will} not find any photographs; the few we have reside on the computer’s hard disk, which will have already been useless for many years. {...} The testimony of our lives together is dependent upon a good memory, ours and that of a silicon motherboard. {...} {They} will find very few objects and almost no embellishments, not even in Emanuele’s room, which from year to year is being emptied of toys and colors, because everything that’s important to him is now found in the circuits of a tablet.(Review based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher.)
    • 3/5
      This little book as sold and shelved as a novel. But it reads like a memoir. And on a page before the TOC, Giordano writes that there was a Mrs A in his life, this was inspired by her, is an homage to her, details have been changed. But not the detail of the narrator's job--he is a physicist, and Giordano has a PhD in particle physics.The title tells all—"Like Family". Mrs A, their son's nanny, has been with this family since Nora was on bedrest while pregnant with 9-year-old Emanuele. Previously, she had been Nora's father's domestic help. She runs the household, knows everyone's quirks, and loves the boy. When she is diagnosed with cancer, what will she do? What will they do? Long widowed with no children of her own, her closest family are some cousins. Nora, her husband, and Emanuele are like family--they worry, they cry, they reassure, they take Mrs A for appointments, they help, they encourage. But what does being "like family" get from distant relatives? What can you do at the end?This book reads so strongly like a memoir that I am sure many would consider it good writing. Personally, it just makes me uncomfortable. I love memoirs, and I read a fair number. And I would much rather read Giordano's true account of their time with his Mrs A. Though being "like family" and not "family", maybe that idea wouldn't go over well with the cousins?