Astray, Emma Donoghue
Astray, Emma Donoghue
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Astray

Author: Emma Donoghue

Narrator: Suzanne Toren, Dion Graham, Robert Petkoff, James Langton, Khristine Hvam

Unabridged: 5 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/30/2012


Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author of Room comes a moving set of historical stories spanning centuries and continents.

The fascinating characters that roam across the pages of Emma Donoghue's stories have all gone astray: they are emigrants, runaways, drifters, lovers old and new. They are gold miners and counterfeiters, attorneys and slaves. They cross other borders too: those of race, law, sex, and sanity. They travel for love or money, incognito or under duress.

With rich historical detail, the celebrated author of Room takes us from puritan Massachusetts to revolutionary New Jersey, antebellum Louisiana to the Toronto highway, lighting up four centuries of wanderings that have profound echoes in the present. Astray offers us a surprising and moving history for restless times.

About Emma Donoghue

Emma Donoghue is the author of sixteen novels, including the award-winning national bestseller Room, the basis for the acclaimed film of the same name. Her latest novel is The Paris Express. She has also written the screenplays for Room and The Wonder and nine stage plays. Born in Dublin, she lives in Ontario with her family. Find out more at EmmaDonoghue.com.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Vikki on September 22, 2012

I have loved Emma Donoghue since before Room. Her novel Slammerkin remains one of my favourite pieces of historical fiction. I very much enjoyed this collection of historical short stories. I read it in one day (admittedly much of this day was spent on a plane). I was lucky enough to hear the author......more

Goodreads review by Tasha on June 27, 2014

The latest anthology from the author of "Room" has an intriguing premise — vignettes and very short stories spun out from old news items and historical records — but the stories Donoghue uncovers are often rich enough to support entire novels, and yet she only elaborates enough to add a few details.......more

Goodreads review by Shannon on December 19, 2012

Within these fourteen stories, Emma Donoghue traces paths overland and oversea, navigating the different ways we can go astray, journeys of the heart and mind as much as the body. Immigrants and the immigrant story feature prominently, but these stories aren't confined to the immigrant experience. E......more


Quotes

"Time and again, Emma Donoghue writes books that are unlike anything I have ever seen before, and ASTRAY is no exception. There is such a deep and compassionate imagination at work in every story in this collection that ASTRAY feels almost like an act of clairvoyance."—-Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder

"Emma Donoghue is one of the great literary ventriloquists of our time. Her imagination is kaleidoscopic. She steps borders and boundaries with great ease and style. In her hands the centuries dissolve, and then they crystallize back again into powerful words on the page."—Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin

"This book demonstrates once again that there's little she can't do well; indeed, the afterword is as moving as the stories....The short story can be a precious, self-enclosed form, but in Donoghue's bold hands, it crosses continents and centuries to claim kinship with many kinds of people.... Another exciting change of pace from the protean Donoghue."—Kirkus Reviews

"...Masterful.... Revolutionary-era New Jersey, Civil War-era Texas, the gold rush Yukon, and many other settings come to life in this wonderfully imaginative, transporting collection."—Kristine Huntley, Booklist (Starred Review)

"Donoghue applies her talents for characterization and depth of feeling over and over again as she documents restless wanderers and lost souls across four generations, each in a world as strange and real as the last."—Emily Temple, Flavorpill

"Donoghue's affinity for yesteryear's untold tales is charming, and her talent for dialect is hard to overstate, which is why it's the first-person stories in ASTRAY that shine brightest....Each and every one of Donoghue's characters leaves an impression."—Time

"Donoghue establishes a distinct voice and person [and] the stories are vivid, curious, and honest..."—Publishers Weekly

"[The] tales...feel like discoveries, stories that were waiting to be told."—Stephan Lee, Entertainment Weekly

"This collection is filled with such acts of imaginative sympathy-each chiseling all that one can, from what Donoghue aptly describes as 'the shadowy mass of all that's been lost.'"—Mike Fischer, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"The stories are taut, vivid and memorable, and the collection reveals Donoghue's remarkable gift for placing herself in the minds of people who otherwise might be lost to history."—Margaret Quamme, The Columbus Dispatch