Small Rain
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3.9 • 8 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"Garth Greenwell's superb narration makes a powerful case for authors reading their own work...there's an open tenderness in Greenwell's voice that's immediately compelling" —AudioFile on Cleanness
This program is read by the author.
A medical crisis brings one man close to death—and to love, art, and beauty—in a profound and luminous novel by award-winning author Garth Greenwell.
A poet's life is turned inside out by a sudden, wrenching pain. The pain brings him to his knees, and eventually to the ICU. Confined to bed, plunged into the dysfunctional American healthcare system, he struggles to understand what is happening to his body, as someone who has lived for many years in his mind.
This is a searching, sweeping novel set at the furthest edges of human experience, where the forces that give life value—art, memory, poetry, music, care—are thrown into sharp relief. Time expands and contracts. Sudden intimacies bloom. Small Rain surges beyond the hospital to encompass a radiant vision of human life: our shared vulnerability, the limits and possibilities of sympathy, the ideal of art and the fragile dream of America. Above all, this is a love story of the most unexpected kind.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A medical crisis becomes a profound exploration of life, love, and art in this harrowing novel. When his world is upended by a sudden, excruciating pain, an unnamed poet lands in the ICU during the terrifying uncertainty of the early COVID-19 pandemic. Confined to a hospital bed, he’s forced to confront both his own mortality and the stark realities of the American healthcare system. As he grapples with the raw vulnerability of his situation, the poet reflects on his life, his relationship with his partner, and the marvel and fragility of the body he has long taken for granted. The sweeping narrative expands beyond the confines of the hospital, offering an illuminating vision of human connection and the enduring power of art. Author Garth Greenwell’s lyrical prose and deep empathy shine through in the narration, making Small Rain both an unforgettable listen and a poignant meditation on what it means to live fully in the face of life’s greatest challenges.
Customer Reviews
Waste of Time and Money
Endless, pointless navel-gazing from a fat guy who is too neurotic to see himself without a shirt. He’s in the hospital, but there is no action. I threatened to quit several times, but gave the author a chance. The author, you know, the guy who writes the commas, periods, and question marks? He also narrates the audiobook, reading the story by skipping the logical breaks of punctuation, running multiple sentences together in a _pretentious_ singsong cadence that is just weird. By the end, I was kinda hoping that the lead character would die, just for some action beyond the navel-gazing, but: Spoiler Alert: the patient survives. Do not waste your time and money.