Category: Art, General Fiction
Language: EnglishKeywords: Family
Written by Idra Novey
Read by Christina Delaine, Idra Novey
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged
A New York Times Notable Book of 2023
A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, L.A. Times, Boston Globe, NPR, The Guardian Author Pick, and Today
Longlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award
Longlisted for 2024 Joyce Carol Oates Prize
âA heart-rending book, but also a beautiful celebration of âthe glorious pleasure of erecting something new,â be it a work of art or a human connection.ââThe Wall Street Journal
From âone of the finest and bravest novelists at work today,â (Vulture) award-winning writer Idra Novey has conjured a novel of âastonishing and singularâ honesty (Rumaan Alam) with two determined, unforgettable female voices.
Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia, Take What You Need traces the parallel lives of Jean and her beloved but estranged stepdaughter, Leah, whoâs sought a clean break from her rural childhood. In Leahâs urban life with her young family, sheâs revealed little about Jean, how much she misses her stepmotherâs hard-won insights and joyful lack of inhibition. But with Jeanâs death, Leah must return to sort through whatâs been left behind.
What Leah discovers is staggering: Jean has filled her ramshackle house with giant sculptures sheâs welded from scraps of the areaâs industrial history. Thereâs also a young man now living in the house who played an unknown role in Jeanâs last years and in her art.
With great verve and humor, Idra Novey zeros in on the joys and difficulty of family, the ease with which we let distance mute conflict, and the power we can draw from creative pursuits.
Take What You Need explores the continuing mystery of the people we love most with passionate and resonance, this novel illuminating can be built from what others have discardedâart, unexpected friendship, a new contentment of self. This is Idra Novey at her very best.
Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
Release date: 03-14-23
A New York Times Notable Book of 2023
A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, L.A. Times, Boston Globe, NPR, The Guardian Author Pick, and Today
Longlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award
Longlisted for 2024 Joyce Carol Oates Prize
âA heart-rending book, but also a beautiful celebration of âthe glorious pleasure of erecting something new,â be it a work of art or a human connection.ââThe Wall Street Journal
From âone of the finest and bravest novelists at work today,â (Vulture) award-winning writer Idra Novey has conjured a novel of âastonishing and singularâ honesty (Rumaan Alam) with two determined, unforgettable female voices.
Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia, Take What You Need traces the parallel lives of Jean and her beloved but estranged stepdaughter, Leah, whoâs sought a clean break from her rural childhood. In Leahâs urban life with her young family, sheâs revealed little about Jean, how much she misses her stepmotherâs hard-won insights and joyful lack of inhibition. But with Jeanâs death, Leah must return to sort through whatâs been left behind.
What Leah discovers is staggering: Jean has filled her ramshackle house with giant sculptures sheâs welded from scraps of the areaâs industrial history. Thereâs also a young man now living in the house who played an unknown role in Jeanâs last years and in her art.
With great verve and humor, Idra Novey zeros in on the joys and difficulty of family, the ease with which we let distance mute conflict, and the power we can draw from creative pursuits.
Take What You Need explores the continuing mystery of the people we love most with passionate and resonance, this novel illuminating can be built from what others have discardedâart, unexpected friendship, a new contentment of self. This is Idra Novey at her very best.
Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
Release date: 03-14-23