Payback: A Novel
Mary Gordon
Sep 2020 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Cynthia Darlow
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10 hr 27 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
In this novel of lifelong reckoning between two women by the award-winning Mary Gordon, we meet Quin Archer, the revenge-loving queen of the reality-TV show Payback. Unbeknownst to her many fans, Quin was once an angry teen named Heidi, whose true story may be known only to Agnes, her art teacher at a private New England girls’ school in the 1970s. Then a young woman herself, Agnes saw a spark of originality in the brooding Heidi. But when she suggested Heidi visit the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the girl returned with a disastrous account of having been picked up at the museum by an older man. Agnes’s stunned response will haunt both women for decades.
Gordon narrates this tale of #MeToo misunderstanding, from a time before there was language to contain it, with a sharp sense of life’s changing tempo. She takes us through Heidi’s disappearance and reinvention as Quin, and Agnes’s escape into career and family in Italy, exploring their choices and potential for happiness until, inevitably, they meet again. Payback is a remarkable book about the precise weight of our words and deeds from a writer whose moral vision is deeply rewarding in its subtlety.
Gordon narrates this tale of #MeToo misunderstanding, from a time before there was language to contain it, with a sharp sense of life’s changing tempo. She takes us through Heidi’s disappearance and reinvention as Quin, and Agnes’s escape into career and family in Italy, exploring their choices and potential for happiness until, inevitably, they meet again. Payback is a remarkable book about the precise weight of our words and deeds from a writer whose moral vision is deeply rewarding in its subtlety.
About the author
MARY GORDON is the author of nine novels, including Final Payments, The Love of My Youth, Pearl, and There Your Heart Lies; six works of nonfiction, including the memoirs Circling My Mother and The Shadow Man; and three collections of short fiction, including The Stories of Mary Gordon, which was awarded the Story Prize. She teaches at Barnard College and lives in New York City.
Payback, her ninth novel, will be available from Pantheon Books in September 2021.
Cynthia Darlow is an audiobook narrator whose credits include Mister Owita’s Guide to Gardening by Carol Wall, Rooms by Lauren Oliver, and Death at Breakfast by Beth Gutcheon.
Payback, her ninth novel, will be available from Pantheon Books in September 2021.
Cynthia Darlow is an audiobook narrator whose credits include Mister Owita’s Guide to Gardening by Carol Wall, Rooms by Lauren Oliver, and Death at Breakfast by Beth Gutcheon.
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