Audiobook7 hours
Eden
Written by Andrea Kleine
Narrated by Teri Schnaubelt
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
()
About this audiobook
Every other weekend, Hope and Eden-backpacks, Walkmans, and homework in hand-wait for their father to pick them up, as he always does, at a strip-mall bus stop. It's the divorce shuffle; they're used to it. Only this weekend, he's screwed up, forgotten, and their world will irrevocably change when a stranger lures them into his truck with a false story and smile.
More than twenty years later, Hope is that classic New York failure: a playwright with only one play produced long ago, newly evicted from an illegal sublet, working a humiliating temp job. Eden has long distanced herself from her family, and no one seems to know where she is. When the man who abducted them is up for parole, the girls might be able to offer testimony to keep him jailed. Hope sets out to find her sister-and to find herself-and it becomes the journey of a lifetime, taking her from hippie communes to cities across the country. Suspenseful and moving, Eden asks: how much do our pasts define us, and what price do we pay if we break free?
More than twenty years later, Hope is that classic New York failure: a playwright with only one play produced long ago, newly evicted from an illegal sublet, working a humiliating temp job. Eden has long distanced herself from her family, and no one seems to know where she is. When the man who abducted them is up for parole, the girls might be able to offer testimony to keep him jailed. Hope sets out to find her sister-and to find herself-and it becomes the journey of a lifetime, taking her from hippie communes to cities across the country. Suspenseful and moving, Eden asks: how much do our pasts define us, and what price do we pay if we break free?
Author
Andrea Kleine
ANDREA KLEINE is the author of the novel Calf, which was named one of the best books of 2015 by Publishers Weekly. She is a five-time MacDowell Colony Fellow and the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. A performance artist, essayist, and novelist, she lives in New York City.
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Reviews for Eden
Rating: 3.142857142857143 out of 5 stars
3/5
7 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The book pulled me in right away. It had a great premise. But, ultimately, I found it had no ending. I also thought that it was unrealistic when it came to the main character’s interactions with acquaintances or strangers.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/53.5 The author is a performance artist and it shows in her creativity and ability to envision the world of this bizarre, but plausible story, as well as in the main character's profession and mindset. Hope is a thirty-something, NY playwright, hanging on by a thread -- professionally, socially, emotionally. Her mother has recently died of cancer and she receives a letter out of the blue letting her know the man (Larry) who kidnapped her as a pre-teen is up for parole. This sends Hope on a quest to find her half-sister Eden who experienced the trauma with her, though maybe worse since she was older at the time. Hope also returns to the world of her estranged father, who was tangentially responsible for the kidnapping when he neglected to pick them up at the bus station on his custody weekend. A picture of the girls' childhood begins to emerge – selfish father, hippie-dippy mothers and unresolved trauma from the kidnapping incident. The search by camper van takes Hope to a couple communes and ultimately across the country, but her sister clearly does not want to be found and their meeting is a little anti-climactic, though Hope learns a lot about herself. There are metaphors here too: Eden, the innocence that can’t be regained, Hope that searches….One person replies to her query: “I sense this is some sort of quest for you, needing some sort of closure….keep on keeping on. The best thing you have going for you is your name.” Hope realizes: I hated that kind of resolution: everything is not all right in the end. In the end, your bruises become scars and they make you who you are.” (206) and “I thought …about how I was addicted to continuing. It was what we did. It was how we lived. Make one decision and then another. Make one mark, then another. Write one word. Write another.” (261) Steps toward healing.