The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits audiobook

The Vanishers

By Heidi Julavits
Read by Xe Sands

Dreamscape
8.77 Hours • Unabridged
Format : Digital Download (In Stock)
  • 1 Format: Digital Download
  • $24.99
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    ISBN: 9781611205008

Julia Severn is a student at an elite institute for psychics. Her mentor, the legendary Madame Ackermann, afflicted by jealousy, subjects Julia to the humiliation of reliving her mother's suicide when Julia was an infant. As the two lock horns, and Julia gains power, Madame Ackermann launches a desperate psychic attack that leaves Julia the victim of a crippling ailment. But others have noted Julia's emerging gifts, and soon she's recruited to track down an elusive missing person who might have a connection to her mother. As Julia sifts through ghosts and astral clues, everything she thought she knew of her mother is called into question, and she discovers that her ability to know the minds of others goes far deeper than she ever imagined.

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Summary

Summary

A 2012 San Francisco Chronicle Best Book for Fiction

Julia Severn is a student at an elite institute for psychics. Her mentor, the legendary Madame Ackermann, afflicted by jealousy, subjects Julia to the humiliation of reliving her mother's suicide when Julia was an infant.

As the two lock horns, and Julia gains power, Madame Ackermann launches a desperate psychic attack that leaves Julia the victim of a crippling ailment.

But others have noted Julia's emerging gifts, and soon she's recruited to track down an elusive missing person who might have a connection to her mother. As Julia sifts through ghosts and astral clues, everything she thought she knew of her mother is called into question, and she discovers that her ability to know the minds of others goes far deeper than she ever imagined.

Editorial Reviews

Editorial Reviews

“Darkly comic…Sharp-eyed, sardonic, hilarious…Julavits is at her acrobatically linguistic best here. Nearly every page contains a showstopping description or insight…[The] narrative voice is superb. Funny, self-deprecating, exquisitely attuned…Vivid…Remarkable....Heartbreaking.” —New York Times Book Review
“An absorbing meditation on female competition with Hitchcockian twists…Gripping.” —Entertainment Weekly
“A blistering read. Female aggression may lurk everywhere, but Julavits decides to unleash her antagonists in a quirky realm, the fictional Institute of Integrated Parapsychology, a New Hampshire school for students of the occult…If you’re lucky, you have one brazen friend who can mesmerize the room with a wild story. If you’re not, The Vanishers will provide a similar jolt of transgressive, feminine thrill.” —Plain Dealer
“Part coming-of-age story, part murder mystery, part absurdist romp, part neurological novel…Julavits’ characters are as earnestly bizarre as Haruki Murakami’s, and she’s as funny as Lorrie Moore.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Sharply original…Stylish and fiercely funny…A wild, fun ride that doesn’t let up until the last sentence…Julavits is a fearlessly inventive writer.” —Elle
“Julavits is a keen observer of the high drama…An evocative writer, she conjures up the supernatural in a way that feels plausible…Haunting.” —Economist
“The protagonist…could join the ranks of literature’s most unreliable narrators, alongside Humbert Humbert and Huck Finn.” —Wall Street Journal
“Themes of loss, reinvention, and the ways women build each other up and tear each other down…run through The Vanishers. But Julavits balances the emotional vertigo with sharp wit…Like a dream, it’s never anything but intriguing.” —Seattle Times
“Julavits has a questing, eclectic intellect…She creates a sophisticated symmetry in the final surprising moments of Julia’s story, and, as if in an encore, adds an adroit comic flip at the end.” —Boston Globe
“Thrilling, subversive insights…Powerful in many ways…On the subject of loss in particular, Julavits is an expert, writing with eloquence and poetry.” —Philadelphia Inquirer
“Bristling with wicked humor and sharp-edged irony, The Vanishers explores the ways in which the dead can haunt the living and the often painful persistence of memory.” —Huffington Post

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Author

Author Bio: Heidi Julavits

Author Bio: Heidi Julavits

Heidi Julavits was born in Portland, Maine, in 1968. She graduated from Dartmouth College and has an MFA from Columbia University. Her short stories have appeared in Harper’s, Esquire, the Best American Short Stories, Zoetrope, among other places. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, Elle, and the Best American Travel Essays. She is a founding coeditor of the Believer, the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, Ben Marcus, and their two children.

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Details

Details

Available Formats : Digital Download
Category: Fiction/Mystery & Detective
Runtime: 8.77
Audience: Adult
Language: English

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