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    Checker and The Derailleurs
    Checker and The Derailleurs
    Checker and The Derailleurs
    Audiobook11 hours

    Checker and The Derailleurs

    Written by Lionel Shriver

    Narrated by MacLeod Andrews

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    "Ms. Shriver portrays [her characters] with psychological depth and wry humor, dramatizing a subject that's rarely been exploited in fiction, and pulling off a novel that not only works, but rocks."—New York Times Book Review

    From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Post-Birthday World and the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin, a tender, hilarious story of youth and envy, ambition and rock and roll, hero worship and heroism, and, especially, love

    Beautiful and charismatic, nineteen-year-old Checker Secretti is the most gifted and original drummer that the club-goers of Astoria, Queens, have ever heard. When he plays, conundrums seem to solve themselves, brilliant thoughts spring to mind, and couples fall in love. The members of his band, The Derailleurs, are passionately devoted to their guiding spirit, as are all who fall under Checker's spell. But when another drummer, Eaton Striker, hears the prodigy play, he is pulled inexorably into Checker's orbit by a powerful combination of envy and admiration. Soon The Derailleurs, too, are torn apart by latent jealousies that Eaton does his utmost to bring alive.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateAug 4, 2009
    ISBN9781423397175
    Checker and The Derailleurs
    Author

    Lionel Shriver

    Lionel Shriver nació en 1957, en Carolina del Norte. Periodista y escritora, estudió en la Universidad de Columbia, ha vivido en Nairobi, Belfast y Bangkok, y en la actualidad reside en Londres. Después de varias novelas, en el año 2005 ganó el prestigioso Premio Orange con Tenemos que hablar de Kevin, que se convirtió en un bestseller internacional y consagró a la autora: «Un libro muy valiente, muy arriesgado, muy trabajado y muy impactante, sin concesiones ni gratuidades, de poderoso calado literario» (José María Guelbenzu, El País). Además de esta, Anagrama también ha publicado sus siguientes novelas: El mundo después del cumpleaños: «Una escritora que va siempre a por todas» (Pablo Martínez Zarracina); «Repleta de humor inteligente» (Ramón Loureiro, La Voz de Galicia); Todo esto para qué: «Mordaz y de un humor negrísimo, después de leer a Shriver ya todas las demás nos parecen tontas e insulsas» (Gabriela Wiener, Marie Claire); «Me leí su novela anterior, El día después del cumpleaños, y no quiero dejar de leerme todo lo que hace» (Lola Beccaria, El País); «Lionel Shriver no escribe, construye bombas» (Laura Fernández, El Mundo); Big Brother: «La lucidez de Lionel Shriver nos da siempre un merecido y a ratos hilarante bofetón. Nos mantiene despiertos» (Marta Sanz, El Confidencial); y Los Mandible: «Shriver perfecciona su condición de cronista social... La autoconsciente brillantez de sus diálogos y el satírico aliento de su prosa se con-juran, como en las mejores novelas de Jonathan Franzen o Jeffrey Eugenides, a favor de sus personajes, que siempre resultan cercanos» (Sergi Sánchez, El Periódico).

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    Reviews for Checker and The Derailleurs

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      For a long time, Checker and the Derailleurs had mostly a cult following. Published in 1989, it went out of print until reissued in 2009. Now that Lionel Shriver's books are going to gain new audiences due to the buzz around the film version of We Need to Talk About Kevin, someone will probably try to make a movie of Checker as well.

      I hope not. While it seems eminently filmable and the richly colored and textured images Shriver paints could be magic in the hands of a visual director like Terrence Malick or Tom Ford, it would be a shame to ruin a character like Checker Secretti.

      Checker, who reminded me of a latter-day Phineas (from John Knowles's 1953 A Separate Peace), is like a personal gift from the author because we need so much to bring him to life inside our own heads. I very much want to hang with Checker, but the Checker of my imagination, not of some casting agent's.

      Some folks read this book over and over, and I can see why. It's the only way we can keep knowing Checker and his friends over a lifetime.