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Ducks, Newburyport cover art

Ducks, Newburyport

By: Lucy Ellmann
Narrated by: Stephanie Ellyne
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Summary

Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize 2019.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2019.

Latticing one cherry pie after another, an Ohio housewife tries to bridge the gaps between reality and the torrent of meaningless info that is the United States of America. She worries about her children, her dead parents, African elephants, the bedroom rituals of happy couples, Weapons of Mass Destruction and how to hatch an abandoned wood pigeon egg. Is there some trick to surviving survivalists? School shootings? Medical debts? Franks 'n' beans? 

A scorching indictment of America's barbarity, past and present, and a lament for the way we are sleepwalking into environmental disaster, Ducks, Newburyport is a heresy, a wonder - and a revolution in the novel.

©2019 Lucy Ellmann (P)2020 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"A masterpiece like no other." (Vogue)

"Full of wit and intelligence...and one of the most intriguing, charming and genuinely funny characters I have come across in recent years." (The Herald)

"In her latest novel, Lucy Ellmann doesn't just carry on as before: she doubles up, doubles down, and absolutely goes for broke. (...) Success? Failure? A triumph." (Guardian

What listeners say about Ducks, Newburyport

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Tremendous _ the fact that it is so excellentl

I can't write highly enoght about this book and what a brilliant reading! It takes a while (short) to get involved. I could feel empathy with the narrator though I am a man - and all those pies! Yes it is long but so worth while! It is so worth the chance of a purchase to get into a person's head and that is my belief of what fiction is about.

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10 people found this helpful

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Powerful

Ellmann’s highly original concept makes a powerful document of our time. A near perfect listen. Stephanie Ellyne is just brilliant. Because it is so well read, the few slips become the more noticeable and annoying. Mainly some Italian words; Trastevere, Piazzale, ....I often wonder why narrator or publisher doesn’t check intonations with native language speakers.

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7 people found this helpful

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WOW!

What a tour de force- a stream of consciousness, some great recipes, a fascinating interweaving of stories and a comment on the state of humanity, all in one book. Amazing, Lucy Ellmann you are to be congratulated and brilliantly read by Stephanie Ellyne.

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6 people found this helpful

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Ducks,Nuwburyport

Truly unique Lucy Ellmann book is a brilliant work of fiction and pushes narrative to the limits. The narration by Stephanie Ellyne is suburb.

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6 people found this helpful

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The Karen Book

A pointless, repetitive, superficial book written by a glitching AI. There are a lot of actually good books you could listen to instead of spending 45 mindnumbing hours on this one.

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An extended listen would have saved me from this

The narration is good, given the material she has to contend with. I did listen to a sample before buying, but that can't possibly prepare you for the relentless repetition of the endless internal monologue. Or brace you for the huge cultural gaps that a UK listener feels. For example, I have never heard of many of the brands that are listed, or the personalities. A good book would take you across such gulfs, but this is not a good book.

So, I have learned that the hype accompanying a 'ground breaking' novel is really powerful. It had me fooled.

I thought it was very boring, and the glimpses of any discernible plot are opaque and rare, it has no story line. Added to that, there are bewildering intermissions in which we journey across somewhere remote with a wild mountain cat. At first I found these a relief as they are not presented as single-sentence streams of consciousness, but then I began to feel (justly) anxious about that plot. Soon after that I gave up.

A complete waste of a credit and of about 15 hours (which left 30+ hours to go, which I can't bear to waste on this frankly awful tripe).




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The fact that...

This book has kept me company for the last two months. The story line slowly appears in-between the unconscious stream of thoughts of this mother, woman, freelancer - a clever book that takes time but worth the wait. And I learnt some new foods & recipes.

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Brilliant narration

I was so sorry when this ended. It’s an almost mesmerising listen and, as it’s so long, I really began to feel part of the world of this book. It was brought thoroughly to light by the tremendous, thoughtful narration. I really felt that Stephanie Ellyne inhabited the persona of the narrator and gave a really great performance. I would highly recommend this recording.

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Ideal lockdown listen.

Absolutely brilliant,enjoyed every minute did not want it to end. What a brilliant idea wonderfully created. The narration was perfect,really enjoyed it.

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Worth persevering!

Despite the initial shock at the repetitive structure the story unfolds well and is worth persevering with.
Annoying parts in the performance where the narrator mispronounces some words. These do distract.

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2 people found this helpful