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I Hold a Wolf by the Ears: Stories
I Hold a Wolf by the Ears: Stories
I Hold a Wolf by the Ears: Stories
Audiobook5 hours

I Hold a Wolf by the Ears: Stories

Written by Laura van den Berg

Narrated by Amy Landon

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

About this audiobook

I Hold a Wolf by the Ears draws listeners into a world of wholly original, sideways ghost stories that linger in the mouth and mind like rotten, fragrant fruit. Both timeless and urgent, these eleven stories confront misogyny, violence, and the impossible economics of America with van den Berg's trademark spiky humor and surreal eye. Moving from the peculiarities of Florida to liminal spaces of travel in Mexico City, Sicily, and Spain, I Hold a Wolf by the Ears is uncannily attuned to our current moment, and to the thoughts we reveal to no one but ourselves.

In "Lizards," a man mutes his wife's anxieties by giving her a La Croix-like seltzer laced with sedatives. In the title story, a woman poses as her more successful sister during a botched Italian holiday, a choice that brings about strange and violent consequences, while in "Karolina," a woman discovers her prickly ex-sister-in-law in the aftermath of an earthquake and is forced to face the truth about her violent brother.

I Hold a Wolf by the Ears presents a collection of women on the verge, trying to grasp what's left of life. With remarkable control and transcendent talent, van den Berg dissolves, in the words of the narrator of "Slumberland," "that border between magic and annihilation," and further establishes herself as a defining fiction writer of our time.

Editor's Note

Unforgettable…

Vastly different characters and locations are featured in this new collection of short stories, but all are tied together by a common thread of women’s experiences. Laura van den Berg’s vivid portraits of women fighting their way through dire circumstances is at times tragic and unsettling, and in the end, unforgettable.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 28, 2020
ISBN9781705213025
Author

Laura van den Berg

Laura van den Berg is the author of the story collections What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, The Isle of Youth, and I Hold a Wolf by the Ears, which was named one the ten best fiction books of 2020 by TIME, and the novels Find Me and The Third Hotel, which was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and named a best book of 2018 by more than a dozen publications. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Strauss Living Award and a Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Bard Fiction Prize, a PEN/O. Henry Award, and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, and is a two-time finalist for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.

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Reviews for I Hold a Wolf by the Ears

Rating: 3.72 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

25 ratings4 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Not all of the stories in this collection were memorable, but they all kept my attention. Two of them, “Lizards” and “Second Wife,” were highly intriguing and inventive, among the best short fiction I’ve read this year. The narrator was annoying throughout, a talented reader but wrong for this material.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Get a Flannery O’Conner book for what this book promises. I only listened to three stories and was just too bored to finish.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    the download quality was horrible - couldn't make it through the first story...
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I am not a fan of short stories, but I have enjoyed this one, only it left me feeling something is missing at the end of each story.