Galore - Michael Crummey

Written by Michael Crummey
Read by John Lee
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Release date: March 29, 2011
Duration: 11:20:54

When a whale beaches itself on the shore of the remote coastal town of Paradise Deep, the last thing any of the townspeople expect to find inside it is a man, silent and reeking of fish but remarkably alive.

The discovery of this mysterious person, soon christened Judah, sets the town scrambling for answers as its most prominent citizens weigh in on whether he is man or beast, blessing or curse, miracle or demon. Though Judah is a shocking addition, the town of Paradise Deep is already full of unusual characters. King-me Sellers, self-appointed patriarch, has it in for an inscrutable woman known only as Devine’s Widow, with whom he has a decades-old feud. Her granddaughter, Mary Tryphena, is just a child when Judah washes ashore but finds herself tied to him all her life in ways she never expects. Galore is the story of the saga that develops between these families, full of bitterness and love, spanning two centuries.

With Paradise Deep, award-winning novelist Michael Crummey imagines a realm in which the line between the everyday and the otherworldly is impossible to discern.

“Crummey’s captivating generations-long novel is set in a bleak region of Labrador. The grim but fanciful atmosphere is deepened by a collection of idiosyncratic and colorfully named denizens. John Lee’s rich Scots brogue lends an even more fable-like quality to the proceedings. His reading is full of wonder and, at the same time, complete acceptance of Crummey’s characters, despite their many foibles, willfulness, and self-destructive natures. In this isolated, frozen land, resentments over real and imagined slights are borne and nursed for years, predictably exploding every so often, with wide repercussions. Lee reads without judgment, evoking an appreciation of the fathomlessness of human interaction. “— AudioFile