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    The Piper's Son
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    The Piper's Son
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    The Piper's Son
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Piper's Son

    Written by Melina Marchetta

    Narrated by Michael Finney

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Two years after his favorite uncle was blown to bits in a London Tube station, Tom has hit rock bottom. He's quit school and turned his back on his music and everyone that once mattered to him, including the girl he can't forget. Living with his single, pregnant aunt, working at the Union pub with his former friends, and reckoning with his grieving, alcoholic father, Tom's in no shape to mend what's broken. But what if no one else is, either?

    An Indie Next List Selection

    "This tender sequel to Saving Francesca...is powerful and tragic, revealing a wonderful and realistically flawed family working hard to fix its deep damage." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

    "Superior fiction requires excellent characterization, and Marchetta delivers." -Kirkus Reviews(starred review)

    "A memorable portrait of first love, surviving grief, and the messy contradictions and fierce bonds that hold friends and family together." -Booklist

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateMar 8, 2011
    ISBN9781455803828
    Unavailable
    The Piper's Son
    Author

    Melina Marchetta

    Melina Marchetta lives in Sydney. She is also the author of the award-winning novels Saving Francesca, Looking For Alibrandi, and Finnikin of the Rock. Looking For Alibrandi was released as a major Australian film.

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    Reviews for The Piper's Son

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    • 4/5
      The beautiful characters I've come to expect from Melina Marchetta.
    • 4/5
      Tom Mackee is, along with his family, recovering from the shocking death of his beloved uncle in the 2005 London bombings, as well as waiting for his grandfather's body to be repatriated from Vietnam forty years after his death. Francesca, Justine, Will and Tara are a part of Tom's story, but as supporting characters.Written in the third person, except for some emails written in the first person by Tom, Tara and others, The Piper's Son shows the complex relationships between family, friends and lovers, while also focussing on the themes of depression, alcoholism and single parents and how these issues affect all the characters. The use of the third person narrative allows readers to get to know Tom through a neutral point of view, while the emails enable insight into Tom's thoughts, feelings and eventually, his emerging maturity.
    • 5/5
      This is one of those books I could feel at home if I were plucked out of my own life and set down inside it. I would freak out in other cozy everything is perfect families [If I Stay] but with the Mackees I would belong. My own family really isn't all that nice. I don't understand the cosy families of films like While You were Sleeping.It was the small things like the sigh Georgie got from their mom that the boys didn't. I'm a twin myself so I get the Georgie and Dom relationship. I hope non twins got it while reading this book. It's very special but sometimes you do ask them to the hard sh-- you wouldn't ask of anyone else. I haven't read Saving Francesca yet but from what my sister says it might be uncomfortably too close to home. I might really be a Spinelli and not a Mackee afterall. I did feel more like Tom while reading his pov instead of the sisterhood though so much of me could relate to Francesca or Josephine. Marchetta did a great job taking me out of me and into Tom [i]and[/i] Georgie. I often feel disjointed when character povs switch up but not in this book.I felt their loss of their beloved Joe.This book is just as much Georgie's story as it is Tom's. Both characters made huge errors with pushing the people closest to them away after the death of their beloved brother [Georgie] and Uncle [Tom]. Tom's dad also did the same thing but to his son Tom and his wife.I think the most heartbreaking part of this book is during the AA meeting Tom attends with his dad and [step]grand-dad, Bill.Tom rightfully has a lot trust and anger issues with his father over abandoning him before. If his father only could have said he became sober for him he could've forgiven him. But no, dad couldn't remember his name.My other favourite part is when Georgie's best friend tells her how she wouldn't let anyone help her.Grief and depression are very similar in that isolation sense.Marchetta really gets it.Alcholics and depression aren't new to me. Family members letting you down isn't either. Nor is the confusion and letting life slip you by.But this book didn't judge the characters for this.This was sort of the polar opposite of Catcher in the Rye in that way.You can forgive and be forgiven.As much as I hate comparing authors I have to bring up Marcus Zusak.No one called Tom a loser. Sure, they called him dickhead [or he imagined they did] but not loser.The part in I am the Messenger was so cruel when his family were ashamed of him for his aimlessness and depression.I'm a fan of Zusak's work but the compassion towards her characters really shines in Piper's Son.
    • 4/5
      4.5 stars.. This was such a beautiful story (as usual).I am a Marchetta fan - she is simply amazing, she knows how to rip your heart out and then to put it back in place.And, BTW, if the next one is about Jimmy i'm going to be so, so happy :D
    • 5/5
      I haven't cried in a book for YEARS. I cried three times and was near crying many more times. I think this is the most moving and involving book I have read for such a long time. It's hard to say what it's about - it's a sort of family saga, sort of a coming of age and sort of - all sorts of thigs! It defys description, it's really a story about life, death and a family trying to figure it all out. I dare anyone to hate this book- it's brilliant.
    • 3/5
      Good follow-up to one of my favorite books, "Saving Francesca." This book uses the voice of a different character, Thomas, but suffers for it.Tom's had a rough time of it as of late. His uncle has died, the only girl he cared for has moved far away and his family is tearing apart. After a bender that leaves him with stitches, he moves in with his pregnant 42 year old aunt and tries to piece his life back together.Tom is an interesting character, but I must say I was much more intrigued by him when he was in a supporting role. I commend Marchetta for showing Tom as a complicated, often unlikable character, but I often felt that I wanted the story to move back to Francesca.Marchetta's writing is still wonderful and she does a great job weaving together a complicated family history.
    • 5/5
      I actually didn't expect to like this book, based on the review of a friend. And, at first, I found it hard to sort through because I thought it was going to be about different characters. But in the end, the book was amazing. It was almost more heartwrenching than Saving Francesca. One of the things I liked about this book was seeing the world, present and past, from Tom's point of view. He was always on the fringes of Francesca, so it was nice to have a book focused on him (instead of on Will, like I'd expected). I also liked that they were adults, that lives had gone on and things had happened. In a way, The Piper's Son is a fantastic coming of age story about people who have already come of age. I love love this book and Marchetta needs to write more so I can read more.
    • 5/5
      I took a heavenly ride through our silenceI knew the moment had arrivedFor killing the past and coming back to life-Pink Floyd, "Coming Back To Life"Marchetta is a writer who understands the beauty in the breakdown. This book would not have been so simultaneously hopeful and heartbreaking to read if she didn't. It's 2007. Two years have passed since Tom's beloved Uncle Joe was killed on his way to work in London. Tom's father has always been a drinker, but he completely falls off the wagon after Joe's death. Tom's mother walks out in an attempt to shield his younger sister from the chaos. Tom refuses to go. Eventually, his father walks out on him, too. Tom escapes quietly into an numbed state of drug and alcohol use to cope. I blame him, but it's a sympathetic blaming. Some emotions feel better on snooze.His Aunt Georgie has other problems. Due to seemingly being the only family member able to hold her crap together (bless the Georgies of the world), she flies up to London to retrieve Joe's body, if possible. Her ex accompanies her. The one who cheated on her five years earlier. And got another woman pregnant. Now, two years later, Georgie is also pregnant with his baby. Honestly, I don't how she did it, because straight up, I would be like, "Please, for the love God, hand me a drink."Like I said, I can sympathize with Tom.I am not sure if I can adequately articulate my emotions about this one. I know on the surface it would be so easy to say that the events in The Piper's Son are about a family dealing with grief from a death. It would be incredibly easy to say that. However, the death, to me, seemed more of a reckoning, a gathering on the Finch-Mackee timeline for things unsaid, resentments unacknowledged, and demons unconquered. The death of Tom's Uncle Joe was the keystone of a family's implosion and magnified issues that were already present. Instead of the family coming together, the fine fracture lines cracked apart and separated individuals. Tom was both abandoned and chose to be on his own. Georgie closed in her grief and shame and anger over her baby brother's death and her unplanned pregnancy.No one I've read can quite balance grief and humor like Marchetta can . . . Our Tom is still the snarky layabout that he was in Saving Francesca, but while you only got a whisper of his pain there, here it is full blown, as are his quips and timing. At times, I hated him, and at others, I kept praying that he would reach out to someone, anyone, because it was evident that he wanted and needed that. Georgie is one of the 'realest' characters I've ever read. She carries guilt the way she carries her child: it hangs low on her and takes up the center of her being. Marchetta really nails the difficult journey of self-love and forgiveness of others through Georgie.I didn't just smile; I laughed out loud in public (several times, I might add). A couple pages later, I'd tear up. I love this family - I know a bit about how some families need to get a little blood on the floor so everyone can walk away feeling loved and forgiven. It's a cathartic process you only appreciate if you grow up with it. Their humor, their loyalty and their ability to feel deeply had me hoping the entire book that everyone would find their way back to each other.For those of you wondering if you need to read Saving Francesca to understand this book, no, it's not necessary. The Mackee's story stands on it's own, although Saving Francesca is a book I highly recommend to you, as well (review coming 03.14.11). I am not sure if I am really doing this book justice, but suffice to say, I didn't love it; I breathed it in and lived it. It's the subtle difference between standing outside a story and being a witness in it, and Marchetta's writing is the type that makes you feel like you walking down the street with Tom or talking men with Georgie. In the end, this is the story of how love can rip family apart and bring them back together, of how keeping connections with others alive and hungry nourishes and protects your own life. The Piper's Son is a beautiful story of love and redemption, of going home again, and how some things have to shatter so you can put them right again.
    • 5/5
      Oh. My. Stars. This book. Wow. Just... wow. It was painfully beautiful. Literally painful. It hurt my heart so much that I don't know if I can ever read it again. And yet, it was beautiful... the writing, the relationships, the healing. I want to read it again. How does Marchetta do it? The characters are so broken and the story could easily have become cliche and well.... drivel. It didn't. It was real and at times heartbreaking and hopeful and humorous and just so incredibly emotional. I'm fairly sure that I cried for each character at some point in the novel.The story is mainly about Tom. His life has fallen apart since we last saw him in Saving Francesca. (Note: If you've not read Saving Francesca you will not be lost in this book but it enhances the story. I would recommend reading it first.) Basically, at the story open, he has hit rock bottom and has no where to go. the piper's son follows Tom and various members of his family as they try to heal and move on from tragedies and hurts. It's told in the present as well as through memories and flashbacks. The characters are all incredibly flawed and do so many things that make you want to shake them yet you're rooting for them throughout the book. I spent at least the first half of this book taking one hit after another to my heart. It got to the point where I almost didn't want to learn more about any of the characters because I loved them and knew that there was something that was going to blindside me and make me break for them. Then there were about 20 or so pages where I was laughing out loud and thinking, "Ah! Here is where it turns around." As we used to say in the 90s... NOT! As I reread that I realize that it makes it sounds all doom and gloom-y. It's not. There are very funny parts. I love Tom and his crazy mixed up family and friends. They remind me of my own. Still, as I said before, Tom is at a very low point. As readers we go through that with him before the healing really starts. And the thing about healing? It can hurt too. This was a beautiful story of life, love, healing and loyalty. Marchetta builds real, complex relationships. Not everything is tied up in a nice neat bow, but there is hope in the end. A few of the random things I loved:*Music... it's important to many of the people in the story and I loved the way it was used.*The names/insults Tom and his friends/family banter around.*Tom's silly side... we don't see it all that often in the first 2/3 of the book but Tom can be very silly. Also, witty.*The friendship between Francesca, Justine, Siobhan, and Tara.* Seeing the crew from Saving Francesca a few years down the road. They're no longer teenagers.* The Australian coverI would highly recommend this book. It's certainly intense, but very worth it!
    • 4/5
      Thomas Mackee wakes up in the hospital, realizing that he's wasted away the past few years after his favorite uncle died and that he may be headed down the same path as his alcoholic father. With no other options, he moves in with his pregnant aunt, Georgie, gets a grunt job at a pub with old friends, and tries to make sense of his failed, not-quite-relationship with Tara Finke. In this companion novel to Saving Francesca, readers get to reconnect with some of their favorite characters and meet some engaging new ones, all of whom come together to help Thomas deal with the tragedies, both big and small, in his life.Melina Marchetta's fluid, natural writing style brings her characters to life in a way that feels like you've known them forever. Though Thomas feels alone, he's surrounded by a rich cast of characters, all with their own quirks, that gives the book a sense of intimacy. The interactions between the younger characters were particularly entertaining and will definitely appeal most to teen readers. Thomas is certainly the focus of the book, but his 40-something aunt Georgie gets nearly equal prominence. Her pregnancy and more complex relationship problems were compelling for me, but may put off younger readers looking for a true YA book. And while this does stand alone from Saving Francesca, it may be a harder sell for those who haven't read it. Some elements of the story, especially the Thomas-Francesca-Will relationship, are richer knowing their history. Overall, this is a story about family, community, grief, healing, and reconciliation that will resonate with many readers, though it may have some difficulty finding them.
    • 1/5
      It's a long time since I read Saving Francesca (which I loved), but i could not get into this novel. As I was reading it as a teen novel, I was disappointed to find so much concentration on the older adult characters (40 years or so). It is the first book where I have ever had to write down the characters names as they were introduced to try to follow the story. Perhaps I need to get away from it for a while, I could not relate to Goergie at all.
    • 4/5
      I was looking forward to Melina Marchetta's forthcoming novel until I discovered that The Piper's Son is a sequel-of-sorts to Saving Francesca. Then I didn't know whether to be thrilled or frightened. Saving Francesca is one of my favourite novels - I've read it too many times, I quote or refer to it frequently, I love it to pieces - and I wasn't sure that I wanted to know where Francesca and her friends were 5 years later. Not if finding out would change my opinions of Saving Francesca. I was emotionally invested in the characters before I even picked up the book!I need not have worried. The Piper's Son leaves me feeling about Francesca and her friends exactly the same way as I feel about them in Saving Francesca. (I didn't like everything that had since happened to them - but that's life, that's realistic - and I loved the way their friendships had survived beyond high school.)And anyway - the book isn't about Francesca. It's about one of her former school friends, Tom Mackee. Tom's life is a bit of a mess. He's dropped out of uni and lost contact with his old school friends, and he's still grieving for his uncle who was killed 2 years ago. His mother and sister have moved interstate, his father has disappeared... When Tom's flatmates kick him out, he finds himself living with his aunt, Georgie, and working at the pub with his former friends. The Piper's Son is as much Georgie's story as Tom's. Georgie is dealing with her own grief, and what grief has done to her family - and the complications of being pregnant with her ex-partner's child.I might have felt emotionally invested in Tom and his friends before I even opened the book, but there were certainly times when I was much more caught up in Georgie's story. I love how The Piper's Son is a young adult novel, and one of the main characters isn't a young adult. It works so well partly because it's is a story about family - a family torn apart by death and grief - and families comprise of people of all ages. And my goodness, can Marchetta write about family! Her portrayal of a family is very convincing and powerful - both heart-wrenching and heart-warming. The Piper's Son is also moving as a story about people putting the pieces of their lives back together, and re-becoming friends. (If Saving Francesca is about making friends, The Piper's Son is about keeping the ones you've got.) I love the dialogue, the bantering, the humour - it made me smile, and it made me laugh. I was also entertained by the popular references. Hurray for quoting Pride and Prejudice!(On a slight side note, I was surprised to find I had a problem with the swearing in this. I am usually not that bothered swearing in books, but I found myself disliking it intensely, and I'm not entirely sure why. However, when everything is said and done, it doesn't change my opinion of The Piper's Son.) There's a lot in The Piper's Son, and a lot I could possibly say about it. It's not my absolute favourite of Marchetta's, and in my mind, it isn't her best - and I don't think that matters. It's captivating, emotional, a fantastic story and very satisfying. I couldn't put it down, and when I finished, I wanted to read it again.
    • 5/5
      Another great book by my favorite author, this one takes place 5 years after "Saving Francesca". Tom is dealing with a lot--his parents separation, his father's disappearance, his aunt's unacknowledged pregnancy, and most of all, his Uncle Joe's tragic death in a London tube bombing two years earlier that sent everyone in his family spiraling out into an orbit of grief.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book! I felt like I could really believe in the characters, and care about them and want to hang around them, even if their lives suck sometimes. It was a refreshing change from the fantasy/crime/history genre's I have picked up of late. I do enjoy a book with Australian references too. It's nice to be able to relate. I actually found a playlist of the songs that are referenced in the book, so I could listen to them in the background while I read. Worth doing I believe. I even found a new band to like.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely fantastic, like everything else the woman writes. One of the blurbs on the back calls it "fiercely emotional," and I can't think of a better way to put it. Love these characters!
    • 4/5
      Not my favorite Marchetta novel but I still enjoyed it. Her characters are always so strong and easy to relate too.
    • 4/5
      Having not read Saving Francesca it was a little difficult at first to piece together the sequel The Piper’s Son by Marchetta. However, I think this is how Marchetta writes giving little “snippets” of information and it is only half-way through the novel that you feel its full strength and the puzzle takes on a clearer and more enjoyable picture. I was intrigued the way she wrote the novel revealing pieces of Tom Mackee’s past in which the entire family is deeply traumatised by the loss of his uncle and of Tom Finch. So much so that Tom’s father abandons the family circle. Tom is “headed for oblivion” and goes and lives with his single and pregnant aunt Georgie, who is dealing with her own issues. The novel is told by the perspective of Tom and Georgie. Tom is funny, often moody and has much potential. He often reminisces about a one night stand with Tara Finke, whom he obviously has deep feelings for throughout the novel. This is a story mainly about “coming of age”. Themes include friendship, relationships, family, mental illness and grief and loss. We are given a brief insight into the character of Francesca, however this time it is Tom’s journey. Marchetta wrote her debut novel Looking for Alibrandi in 1992 in which she won the Children’s Book Council of Australia of the Year for Older Readers as she did with Saving Francesca. Other book awards include On the Jellicoe Road and Finnikin of the Rock. Marchetta is definitely one of Australia’s great young adult writers and one to watch out for more complex stories in dealing with young adulthood.
    • 5/5
      This book about love, guilt, and forgiveness in the contexts of family and friendship is so good that it’s hard for me not to feel overcome with the emotion that arises from reading a wonderful book. It pulls you into the world of the story and as you find out more about each character, you can’t help but become more attached to each, until at the end, you feel bereft when that final page is reached. How sad it will be not to “hear from” these characters anymore, who have become so real to me. How wonderful to find an author who makes one feel so bereft.The story is told from the alternating points of view of Tom Mackee, age 21, and his aunt Georgie, age 42.Tom is the son of Dominic Finch Mackee, known as “the pied piper” because others – particularly his siblings - have always copied whatever he did. Dom’s sister Georgie is his twin, and is now pregnant by her ex-husband Sam, who has a lovely, shy six-year old son Callum by another woman (which was the cause of Georgie and Sams breakup). Dom’s younger brother Joe was one of the fifty some people killed on the subway in London in July 2005 when Islamic suicide bombers blew up trains across the city. His body was never recovered, and no one in this close, contentious but loving family has ever been able to reach closure. Over 40 years earlier, the father of Dominic and Georgie was declared missing in Vietnam, and his body was never recovered either. Although the twins never knew any other dad besides their stepfather Bill, they have never wanted to accept Bill – it might jinx the possibility that their dad, Thomas Finch, could one day come home.Joe’s death led to a host of complications in the family, from Georgie and Sam getting back together, to Dom falling deep into alcoholism and leaving his family, and Tom’s mother and sister moving to Brisbane. Tom has had his own problems, including dropping out of the university, hanging out either drunk or stoned with losers the whole year, and blowing off all of his former friends, those people from the book Saving Francesca with whom he previously had close bonds. One of them, Tara, he was even in love with.All these dysfunctions come home to roost when Tom is evicted and moves in with Georgie, and Dom comes back, sober, and also moves in with Georgie, and Georgie copes with the growing discomfort and emotional volatility of her pregnancy, and her strained relations with Sam and Callum.Discussion: This is a totally character-driven novel, with dialogue that seems astonishingly authentic and with character growth that pushes its way through pain in a way that makes you want to hold every character in the book. And what love this family has, in spite of everything and in spite of the hurt they dole out to one another. Listen to this memory Tom has of him and his father when he was small:"‘I was shaking like crazy and I remember my father took my hand and asked me if I was scared. But I lied and told him I wasn’t and he just looked at me and said, ‘Well, I am, so you’re going to have to hold my hand tight.’”And Tom, so believably awkward with Tara when face-to-face with her, is so much more romantic in his thoughts. When he finds out she was at the same place he was many years ago:"Maybe she’d always been there. Maybe strangers enter your heart first and then you spent the rest of your life searching for them.”The Piper’s Son is a follow-up or companion volume to Saving Francesca. It takes place five years later, and it isn’t necessary to have read the first to enjoy this one. But by reading it first, you will know more about the friends who love Tom like family, and grant him the same kind of space, and criticism, and acceptance that loving families do with one another.Although marketed as a YA book, like other books by Marchetta, I feel it is more accurately described as a crossover book; indeed, Tom is 21, and the other main character, Tom’s Aunt Georgie, is 42. It could be said that Tom "grows up" in this book, but it’s certainly not in the way that would happen were he fifteen.Evaluation: This is a lovely, lovely book. The family dynamics and dialogue brought Tana French to mind for me a bit, but of course French adds murder and mystery to her books. Here, we just have a family with too many members seeking oblivion, and the story of how they fight their way back to redemption, through time, patience, and above all, love.
    • 5/5
      It’s been two years since Tom Mackee’s beloved uncle was killed in the London terrorist attacks, and he and his family are still reeling from it, closed off from one another in their own spheres of pain. Tom quit school and “works” at a local student union/pub alongside his former friends, who, despite his coldness towards them, have stubbornly refused to give up on him.Tom lives with his single, pregnant aunt Georgie, who has problems of her own. She feels like she can’t let her unborn child’s father, Sam, back into her life, not after what happened between them during their years-long relationship. However, with the patient love, shared pain, and quirkiness of his friends and family, perhaps there is a way for Tom, Georgie, and everyone else to heal.I have never read a book by Melina Marchetta that I haven’t loved, which makes her one of a kind. THE PIPER’S SON takes beloved characters from Saving Francesca and makes them hurt—makes us hurt in reading about their struggles—and yet leaves us with a story so powerful, so resonant, so complex, that it’s hard to imagine that such an accomplishment was achieved at the hands of a human being.Readers of THE PIPER’S SON should not expect the same tone as was in Saving Fracesca. THE PIPER’S SON is dark. That’s because Tom Mackee is angry. Two years after his uncle’s death and Tom is still simmering, still resentful, still pushing everyone away and not taking care of himself. You’d hate him for being so self-absorbed if it weren’t for how subtly Tom heals throughout the course of the novel.Melina Marchetta’s characterization isn’t simply splendid. Her dialogue isn’t simply witty and spot-on—it’s revitalizing. The dialogue comes across as simultaneously natural and like the most wonderful thing you’ve ever read in fiction. The characters in THE PIPER’S SON really do come alive through their interactions with one another. Even Tom, so stuck in a cycle of self-torment is he, reveals himself to be capable of being vulnerable, of healing, of loving through his exchanges with others.I had high expectations for THE PIPER’S SON and Marchetta didn’t let me down. THE PIPER’S SON is evidence of Marchetta’s incredible maturation as a writer since her wonderful book Saving Francesca. A must-read for Marchetta fans, and a book that will continue to astound me every time I think back to it.
    • 5/5
      When Tom’s uncle died his family fell apart. His dad became an alcoholic, his mom moved away taking his sister with her and Tom doesn’t want anything to do with his closest friends or the girl he loves. One night while playing guitar at one of his gigs Tom had an accident that took him to the hospital. After he got out he discovers that his roommates kicked him out of their apartment, leaving him on the street with nowhere to go to except to his 42 year old pregnant aunt’s house. After all this misfortune he decides to recover everything that he once had.The Piper’s Son is the sequel to Saving Francesca and it takes place 5 years after. Is basically a standalone book but I assure you’ll want to read Saving Francesca after you read The Piper’s Son. This book made me want to cry and laugh in every chapter. It’s such a contradiction that a book makes you laugh and cry at the same time but that’s the way it is. The story is sad but the way the characters act is funny and is a perfect balance. The best part is that you know there’s light at the end of the tunnel. The stuff that happens to Tom and his family is so sad that I felt their pain because is so realistic that is scary at times. The Mackee-Finch are a normal family, when something bad happens they cry and get mad but they will go on living by helping each other survive. This book makes you realize that before giving up always think that something wonderful might be 12 minutes away from happening.