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Late City

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Late City

By: Robert Olen Butler
Narrated by: Danny Campbell
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About this listen

A visionary and poignant audiobook centred around former newspaperman Sam Cunningham as he prepares to die, Late City covers much of the early 20th century, unfurling as a conversation between the dying man and a surprising God.

As the two review Sam's life, from his childhood in the American South and his time in the French trenches during World War I to his fledgling newspaper career in Chicago in the Roaring '20s and the decades that follow, snippets of history are brought sharply into focus. Sam grows up in Louisiana, with a harsh father, who he comes to resent both for his physical abuse and for what Sam eventually perceives as his flawed morality. Eager to escape and prove himself, Sam enlists in the army as a sniper while still underage. The hardness his father instilled in him helps him make it out of World War I alive, but, as he recounts these tales on his deathbed, we come to realise that it also prevents him from contending with the emotional wounds of war. Back in the US, Sam moves to Chicago to begin a career as a newspaperman that will bring him close to all the major historical turns of the 20th century. There he meets his wife and has a son, whose fate counters Sam's at almost every turn. As he contemplates his relationships - with his parents, his brothers in arms, his wife, his editor and most importantly, his son - Sam is amazed at what he still has left to learn about himself after all these years in this heart-rending audiobook from the Pulitzer Prize winner.

"A moving tale of love and misunderstanding." (Publishers Weekly)

©2021 Robert Olen Butler (P)2021 Highbridge, a Division of Recorded Books
Family Life Fiction Political War & Military Heartfelt Tear-jerking Marriage Military Chicago War
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Critic reviews

Late City is an honest, poignant reckoning of what it means to gaze unblinkingly at our own failings and to find transcendence." (Historical Novel Society)

"A moving tale of love and misunderstanding." (Publishers Weekly)

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Very touching

This is a beautiful and compassionate book, which was movingly read. No disguised voices, just an honest and heartfelt interpretation - I loved it and was quite choked up by the end.

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