The Forgiven: A Novel
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The Forgiven: A Novel Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Lawrence Osborne (Author), Ralph Lister (Narrator), Random House Audio (Publisher)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 1,351 ratings
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In this stylish, haunting novel, journalist and novelist Lawrence Osborne explores the reverberations of a random accident on the lives of Moroccan Muslims and Western visitors who converge on a luxurious desert villa for a decadent weekend-long party.

David and Jo Henniger, a doctor and children's book author, in search of an escape from their less-than-happy lives in London, accept the invitation of their old friends Richard and Dally to attend their annual bacchanal at their home deep in the Moroccan desert - a ksar they have acquired and renovated into a luxurious retreat.

On the way, the Hennigers stop for lunch, and the bad-tempered David can't resist consuming most of a bottle of wine. Back on the road, darkness has descended, David is groggy, and the directions to the ksar are vague. Suddenly, two young men spring from the roadside, apparently attempting to interest passing drivers in the fossils they have for sale. Panicked, David swerves toward the two, leaving one dead on the road and the other running into the hills.

At the ksar, the festivities have begun: Richard and Dally’s international friends sit down to a lavish dinner prepared and served by a large staff of Moroccans. As the night progresses and the debauchery escalates, the Moroccans increasingly view the revelers as the godless "infidels" they are. When David and Jo show up late with the dead body of the young man in their car, word spreads among the locals that David has committed an unforgivable act.

Thus the stage is set for a weekend during which David and Jo must come to terms with David's misdeed, Jo's longings, and their own deteriorating relationship, and the flamboyant Richard and Dally must attempt to keep their revelers entertained despite growing tension from their staff and the Moroccan Berber father who comes to claim his son's body.

With spare, evocative prose, searing eroticism, and a gift for the unexpected, Osborne memorably portrays the privileged guests wrestling with their secrets amid the remoteness and beauty of the desert landscape. He also gradually reveals the jolting backstory of the young man who was killed and leaves David’s fate in the balance as the novel builds to a shattering conclusion.

Selected by The Economist as one of the Best Books of the Year 2012.

Selected by Library Journal as one of the Year's Best Books 2012.

Year's Best Books Chosen by Writers, selected by Lionel Shriver, The Guardian 2012.

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  1. Listening Length
    10 hours and 41 minutes
  2. Author
    Lawrence Osborne
  3. Narrator
    Ralph Lister
  4. Audible release date
    January 29, 2019
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Random House Audio
  7. ASIN
    B07L9DZV6V
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 10 hours and 41 minutes
Author Lawrence Osborne
Narrator Ralph Lister
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date January 29, 2019
Publisher Random House Audio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B07L9DZV6V
Best Sellers Rank #211,642 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#1,148 in Psychological Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)
#4,151 in Psychological Thrillers (Audible Books & Originals)
#7,568 in Literary Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
1,351 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Acorn
5.0 out of 5 stars Hard to put down
Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2013
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Richard and Dally are a very wealthy gay couple with an opulent holiday mansion on the fringe of the desert in Morocco. They are having a long weekend party and have invited their rich friends and acquaintances, as well as paparazzi to record the event. David and Jo are two of the guests. He is a doctor with chauvinist views and an alcohol problem, and she writes children's stories though has not published anything for several years. Their relationship is often combative. Driving through the night on unfamiliar roads to the party, David hits and kills a young man who walks onto the road trying to sell fossils. A while later David and Jo roll up at the holiday home with the body in the back seat and the planned weekend of drugs, debauchery and over-indulgence suddenly acquires an inconvenient truth.

Woven into the story is the contrast between the wealth and decadence of those at the party and the grinding poverty and sense of hopelessness among the local population. The latter loathe the lifestyles of the rich and fatuous but at the same time envy their wealth and power. David shows no remorse whatsoever about killing the young man, brushing it off as an accident, but there is a suspicion that he is not being entirely truthful. The Moroccan staff at Richard and Dally's house are angry at David's insouciance in the face of tragedy and this feeling soon spreads to the surrounding community.

When an old man from a remote tribe arrives to claim the body of his son, David agrees to go with him to witness the burial and to pay a bribe so the matter will not be pursued by the police. While David is away, Jo finds herself increasingly questioning her marriage and this is spurred by the attentions of an American, Tom Day, and by advice from Richard.

No one is innocent in this tale. We learn that the young man killed by David has a dubious past and that the relationship with his father was troubled. Richard and Dally fail to comprehend how their affluence and lack of concern for local mores are seen by their Moroccan staff and neighbours, and are dismissive when some guests raise the issue. Both David and Jo do things that need to be forgiven, and the dead man's father is torn between revenge and forgiveness for what has occurred. There is a bigger question of whether the rich, whose wealth derives from exploiting the poor, can in turn be forgiven for their blithe disregard of those around them.

There is resolution for most of the main characters, but you sense that Richard and Dally will continue in their libertine ways because their money allows that irrespective of the circumstances in which they live. Perhaps that is the way of the world.

Lawrence Osborne writes in an evocative and appealing style, capturing the shallowness of the super-rich as well as the stoicism and grim realism of the poor. The plot is tightly structured and there is a sustained low-key tension as the impact of the young man's death plays out. Will everyone forgive and forget, or are there some things that cannot be forgiven? This question hangs over the narrative right up to the very last page.

Osborne mainly writes non-fiction. I read his book Bangkok Days (North Point Press, 2009) when it was first released. It was a sorry tale of an expat lost in a strange city, lost in love and never really coming to terms with either. I found bits of that book annoying because it showed a poor grasp of some aspects of Thai culture, but at the same time I was greatly impressed by the written style and in the end enjoyed the book immensely. The writing in The Forgiven maintains the high quality. It is a polished novel with well-drawn characters and a gripping story to boot. I found it very hard to put down.
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BC
4.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing, intriguing, fascinating novel.
Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2016
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Utterly fascinating story. Firstly I love novels that take place in other parts of the world. There is little I can add to the initial description about the novel given on Kindle - the beginning words in one of the paragraphs nails it: "With spare, evocative prose, searing eroticism, and a gift for the unexpected....". One of the posted reviews also accurately states "This story is in large part about the tensions and disparate beliefs and lifestyles between Muslim and Western ideology....". I am a highlighter and hereby provide what to me were poignant descriptions/passages to whet your appetite:

"He was like a Pinocchio with snipped wires, and it would take a miracle to get him rewired before the weekend was out."

"She wasn't ever jealous; she was annoyed only by his occasional failure to tell her where he was. It was informational insecurity."

"They had a grudging envy of them on that account, but the envy never quite became respect. But who can say that the two things are not sometimes identical?"

"Since everyone seemed to tacitly think that he was guilty anyway, it would actually be a relief to be forgiven in some way. And nobody could forgive him except this shabby, stony old man in his dark brown burnoose. If this implacable father didn't forgive him, no one could. Being forgiven and being exonerated by the authorities were two very different things, and it was because the people themselves felt that difference that he was forced into doing as Abdellah asked. It was a way out, and it was the only way out."

"Grief was just a giant confusion in which millions of bits from a life lay about like ruined fragments, and nothing could make them cohere again."

"The tongue has no bones, but it crushes all the same."

"Suddenly there was nothing more to say and the man sitting across from her entered her invisibly, without lifting a finger, with the deftness of a thief who knows his way in the dark, though who knew how."

"It was that indifference to discomfort that stirred one to admiration."

"And yet in the end, he had not done anything wicked. It had just been an accumulation of accidents. Or do we produce our own accidents? Are they the sum total of our little neglects?"

"For whereas an accident is no one's fault, a lie is an individual man's specific fault because it is deliberate. It's a real act, something willed, and it is more difficult to forgive than anything."

"Her struggle was with Day, whom she would give in to, but not because he was merely available. It was rather because he had bothered with her, when men rarely did. He had taken the time to consider her, to take her into account. To measure her qualities and faults and weigh them like ounces of gold and slag."

"....life is but a sport and a pastime, as the Koran carefully reminds us, and because it is a game and nothing more, one forgets that the point of life is death."

"...even the most frozen, deadened heart has two or three drops of love at its bottom, enough to feed the birds."

Treat yourself to what is to me an extraordinary novel about a far away, strange land, where a mix of bizarre people come together for a short period of time - and above all, be prepared for an ending to knock you off your feet.

And be SURE to read the "Conversation with Lawrence Osborne" at the end - loved his comment "....the original story immediately reminded me of a place where I had spent a lot of time years before. And it seemed probable. It resonated with what I remembered of my own sometimes difficult relations when staying in the Sahara - that feeling of not knowing where you are, or not knowing if the surface and depth of other people are aligned or whether they exist in the same context as you do. The Westerner there is always alone and slightly bewildered." I like Osborne calling this novel his "morality fable". And "To me, place creates character, not the other way around. So the setting-the place-twists and reshapes the characters into a certain form...that I suppose is the whole point of the story. In the Sahara, you are not the person you were in South Kensington".
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Mary Judge
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read! whoa ending
Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2024
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Reading everything I can based in Morocco since I began to travel there. A real winner, powerful story
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AC
3.0 out of 5 stars This is a great story (but the writing style can be frustrating)
Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2013
Verified Purchase
This is such an interesting book! It tells such a good story! Definitely worth reading! I'll start with the drawbacks and then go on to the strengths.

It's biggest weakness is the way it's written - the writing style. The style often does not flow very well at all, it can be quite choppy and irritating at times. Especially the author's annoying use of the word "One" as a pronoun. As in - "One likes to do this..." and "One likes to do that...". But really the author's rampant use of the term "One" is just one aspect of the weaknesses in the narration. To put it simply - the style just isn't as good as it could or should have been.

But the story... the story he tells is such an interesting and powerful one. I was so moved by it that I suspected that it had to be based on a true story. I researched interviews with the author about what his inspiration was for the book and found very quickly that I was right and the story was based on real events. (Interestingly in those same interviews, the author talks openly about the fact that he struggled with the narration and writing style for this book because his background is in non-fiction. So this book was written and then had to be rewritten. Quite frankly - it shows - but the story is so good that it manages to triumph anyway, despite the weakness in the writing style).

This is an incredibly interesting and thought provoking book. It is definitely worth reading. If the writing style annoys you - just persevere with it - it's worth it in the end. I gave it 3.5 stars because although the story deserves 5 stars, the writing style only deserves 2 stars.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Ticked Off
5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic read
Reviewed in Canada on October 3, 2021
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This novel was a page turner.
When I was finished, I returned to it a few times to re-read certain passages.
If you've ever travelled to Morocco, this tome will resonate with you.
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Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars La construcción psicológica de numerosos personajes de la novela, todos importantes.
Reviewed in Spain on November 27, 2022
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Me gustó todo. Estamos ante un novelista de los grandes. La utilicé para disfrutar, enormemebte y para aprender.
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marco catalano
3.0 out of 5 stars Surprise
Reviewed in Italy on August 10, 2021
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Beautiful description and perfectly depicted players, even if you can never know if the author is critical about western way of life or not
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The Bagster
5.0 out of 5 stars Move over, God - Osborne is here
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 3, 2018
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This is quite brilliant. It was one of those unforgettable experiences when you discover a writer previously unknown to you and you know you're now going to devour everything he's ever written and everything he ever does write. The characterisation is wonderful and you're inside the characters heads all the time. There's humour. There's a clear understanding of what makes people tick. There's humanity and empathy. I rarely give any book 5 stars, but there can be no holding back on this one.
12 people found this helpful
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Vreni Bollmann
5.0 out of 5 stars Spannend bis zum Schluss
Reviewed in Germany on November 12, 2017
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Ein Ehepaar ist zu einem Freund nach Marokko an eine mehrtägige Feier eingeladen. Die Ehe ist festgefahren und der Mann, ein Arzt, gibt sich immer mehr dem Alkoholgenuss hin. Auf der Hinfahrt überfährt er einen Berber. Sie nehmen den Leichnam mit auf das mittelalterliche Gut des Gastgebers. Dort ist bereits eine verrückte Party mit viel Drogen und Alkohol in vollem Gange. Das Dienstpersonal, einheimische Berber, hasst die reichen Ausländer, ist aber vordergründig sehr devot. Es gibt Spannungen, die nur gelöst werden können, wenn der Unfallverursacher mit dem Vater des Toten ins Dorf zur Beerdigung geht. Die Frage, ob der Überfahrene ein Strassenräuber oder ein unschuldiges Opfer ist, beschäftigt bis zum Schluss.
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