A Rip in Heaven, Jeanine Cummins
A Rip in Heaven, Jeanine Cummins
3 Rating(s)
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A Rip in Heaven

Author: Jeanine Cummins

Narrator: Jeanine Cummins

Unabridged: 10 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/02/2020


Synopsis

This program is read by the author.

The acclaimed author of American Dirt reveals the devastating effects of a shocking tragedy in this landmark true crime book.

A Rip in Heaven is Jeanine Cummins’s story of a night in April 1991 when her two cousins Julie and Robin Kerry, and her brother, Tom, were assaulted on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River just outside of St. Louis.

When, after a harrowing ordeal, Tom managed to escape the attackers and flag down help, he thought the nightmare would soon be over. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Along with their entire family, he and his sister, Jeanine, were just at the beginning of a horrific odyssey through the aftermath of a violent crime, a world of shocking betrayal, endless heartbreak, and utter disillusionment. It was a trial by fire from which no family member would emerge unscathed.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company

About Jeanine Cummins

Although born in Rota, Spain, author, Jeanine Cummins was born to American parents, as her Dad was stationed in Spain with the US Navy. She grew up in Gaithersburg, Maryland where she graduated from Towson State in English and Communications. After graduation, Cummin's travels took her to Belfast, Northern Ireland where she worked as a bartender. In 1997, she moved back to the United States to work at Penguin in New York City. It was after ten years of working for the publisher that she began her career as an author.

When Cummins was 16, there was an attempted murder of her brother, and an actual murder of her two cousins, which of course, was very traumatizing for the teenager. Her first book was about that horrendous memory. It is entitled A Rip in Heaven, for which she declined several offers to adapt the book to film.

Other works include, The Outside Boy, The Crooked Branch, and her latest, American Dirt. The book has been sold to Flatiron after a three-day bidding war which ended in Cummins receiving a seven-figure amount for American Dirt. It was on Oprah Winfrey's book list, but due to it's controversial subject matter, her planned book tour was cancelled, as Flatiron feared for her safety.

She considers herself white, but her grandmother was born and raised in Puerto Rico, where she says will be the setting of her next book. She lives in New York with her husband and two children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Sharon on February 04, 2024

OMG. Harrowing, terrifying, gut wrenching memoir about violence and death in Cummins' family. I read it in one day. You never think violence is going to happen to your loved ones until it does. The aftermath on what occurred after a life-altering tragic night continues to horrify throughout the stor......more

Goodreads review by Elizabeth on November 18, 2020

It's tough to give a 5 star review to a true crime book and by that I mean that it seems somehow "indecent" since the book is about a terrible murder. What makes this book different from a lot of true crime accounts is that it's also a memoir. What occurs in the book happened within the author's fam......more

Goodreads review by Anita on February 26, 2016

I had a really hard time putting this book down. This is the story of Jeanine's brother and two female cousins - - all in their late teens/early twenties who have a horrible crime perpetrated against them. Unfortunately, one of the three is subsequently blamed for the crime, and this book relates th......more

Goodreads review by Krista on April 14, 2024

So long and sorry, darling I was counting to forever And never even got to ten So long and sorry, darling When we found a rip in heaven We should have just ascended then ~ ‘Til Tuesday On April 4, 1991, author Jeanine Cummins’ nineteen-year-old brother Tom and their similarly aged cousins Julie and Robin K......more


Quotes

“Cummins presents a mesmerizing, highly balanced memoir....[A] compelling, novel-like account...highly admirable.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Cummins recounts the wrenching drama in a straightforward, expertly paced narrative that reads like a novel.”
People

“A wrenching tale of a notorious murder’s long echoes for its survivors.” —Kirkus Reviews