Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

$0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Worship of Hollow Gods cover art

Worship of Hollow Gods

By: James Sniechowski
Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £14.99

Buy Now for £14.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Line cover art
Futile Efforts cover art
The Horror of the Shade cover art
You'd Better Watch Out cover art
Wife Number Seven cover art
The Choosing cover art
Blood Sisters cover art
How to Survive a Summer cover art
The Hobbsburg Horror cover art
NightJack cover art
Hannahwhere cover art
Ash Wednesday cover art
Blood Groove cover art
Songs in Ordinary Time cover art
The Boy with Penny Eyes cover art
The German cover art

Summary

Worship of Hollow Gods depicts the family norms, rituals, and religious routines of a Catholic Polish Detroit family in the 1950s. Through beautiful language, the characters come to life.

In Worship of Hollow Gods, James Sniechowski bears witness to the world of a sensitive nine-year-old boy, subjected to the underbelly of his Polish Catholic family in working-class Detroit. The year is 1950. The family gathers for a Friday night family poker/pinochle party. The outcome reveals a world no one ever talked about then and they are forbidden to talk about now - the unspoken, the impermissible, the reality beneath every family's practiced facade - and what lies beneath when the front has been ripped away.

Sniechowski unsparingly yet compassionately evokes the temptations, trials, and tactics of the family characters while revealing the hollow gods they naively but fatefully worshipped.

Listeners, no matter where in the world, will be prompted if not pushed to confront the hollow gods that reside, like living ghosts, in the unseen of their family's way of life, the invisible that sources and shapes their beliefs and behaviors.

Worship of Hollow Gods dredges up familial bonds that grip and hold tight, unconsciously dictating our destiny. It is story telling at its caring and compelling best.

©2018 James Sniechowski PhD (P)2021 James Sniechowski PhD

Critic reviews

"The prose is powerfully evocative, ably capturing the bewildered isolation Jim experiences in his own home: 'At nine years old, I could feel that barrenness, the draining effect of mechanical living; feel but not make sense of; feel in my body like a worm screwing itself into my every day.' A poignant and poetic depiction of a tumultuous childhood." (Kirkus Reviews)

Love Books? You'll Love Audible.

Transform your day

Transform your day

Replace endless scrolling with endless listening. Chores can be fun.

Listen everywhere

Listen everywhere

You can’t turn pages while you drive—but you can press play.

Carry your entire Library

Carry your entire Library

Your stories go where you go. Audiobooks don’t weigh a thing.

Listen and learn

Listen and learn

Discover stories that can change your mind, your well-being, and your life.

Reach your reading goals

Reach your reading goals

Download titles to listen offline, wherever you are in the world.

Find your niche

Find your niche

WIth thousands of titles to explore, there’s something for everyone.

Try for £0.00 £7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

What listeners say about Worship of Hollow Gods

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.