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The Big Girls
- Author
- Susanna Moore
- Narrator
- various
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Publish Date
- 1 June 2007
- Run Time
- 6 hours 44 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
A crime of unfathomable horror has a ripple-like effect on four profoundly different souls. Helen, a troubled inmate at Sloatsburg women's prison, is serving a life sentence for the murder of her children. Dr. Louise Forrest, the recently divorced mother of an eight-year-old boy, has forsworn the Park Avenue practice for which she trained in favor of the chief of psychiatry job at Sloatsburg. Former New York City narcotics detective Ike Bradshaw is a sardonic corrections officer at the prison. And Angie, an ambitious Hollywood starlet, is intent on nothing but achieving fame. As the alternating narratives unfold, mysteries are revealed and the surprising connection between them is uncovered.
Critics Review
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“The story is told in the alternating voices of Helen, who has long suffered terrifying schizophrenic hallucinations and is serving a life sentence for killing her two small children; Helen’s psychiatrist…a corrections officer…and an ambitious Hollywood star whom Helen believes to be her sister. Moore gradually probes Helen’s psychosis to its horrifying origins, while also delivering a nuanced and devastating account of the fights, rapes, and alliances built from necessity that constitute prison life.”
The New Yorker
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“A darkly seen and subtly realized intertwining of love and betrayal…The read is hypnotic, and the book hard to put down.”
Chicago Tribune
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“Mesmerizing…Moore spins an impressive, well-realized collection of voices and experiences.”
San Francisco Chronicle
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“In spare, yet hypnotic prose, Moore examines the bond between a young psychiatrist and a mentally ill patient in her devastating sixth novel, set at an upstate New York federal women’s prison…Moore deftly shifts perspective among her principal characters…as the action hurtles to an oddly satisfying resolution. Reading this heart breaker is like watching a train wreck while dialing for help on your cellphone. You can’t turn away.”
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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“As the narrative alternates between four points of view, all equally commanding, Moore blurs the lines between criminals and their jailers, emphasizing their common humanity…Moore never shies away from the dark crimes at the center of the narrative, but she brings electrifying prose and a richly compassionate viewpoint to her meditation on both the dark and the generous impulses at work in all of us.”
Booklist (starred review)
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Susanna Moore
- Narrator
- various
- Duration
- 6 hours 44 minutes
- Release Date
- 1 June 2007
- ISBN
- 9781602832947
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Genre
- Fiction: general and literary, Fiction: general and literary, Narrative theme: Interior life, Fiction: general and literary
Synopsis
A crime of unfathomable horror has a ripple-like effect on four profoundly different souls. Helen, a troubled inmate at Sloatsburg women's prison, is serving a life sentence for the murder of her children. Dr. Louise Forrest, the recently divorced mother of an eight-year-old boy, has forsworn the Park Avenue practice for which she trained in favor of the chief of psychiatry job at Sloatsburg. Former New York City narcotics detective Ike Bradshaw is a sardonic corrections officer at the prison. And Angie, an ambitious Hollywood starlet, is intent on nothing but achieving fame. As the alternating narratives unfold, mysteries are revealed and the surprising connection between them is uncovered.
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