Burning Boy, Paul Auster
Burning Boy, Paul Auster
2 Rating(s)
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Burning Boy
The Life and Work of Stephen Crane

Author: Paul Auster

Narrator: Paul Auster

Unabridged: 35 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/26/2021


Synopsis

This program is read by the author.

Booker Prize-shortlisted and New York Times bestselling author Paul Auster's comprehensive, landmark biography of the great American writer Stephen Crane.

With Burning Boy, celebrated novelist Paul Auster tells the extraordinary story of Stephen Crane, best known as the author of The Red Badge of Courage, who transformed American literature through an avalanche of original short stories, novellas, poems, journalism, and war reportage before his life was cut short by tuberculosis at age twenty-eight.

Auster’s probing account of this singular life tracks Crane as he rebounds from one perilous situation to the next: A controversial article written at twenty disrupts the course of the 1892 presidential campaign, a public battle with the New York police department over the false arrest of a prostitute effectively exiles him from the city, a star-crossed love affair with an unhappily married uptown girl tortures him, a common-law marriage to the proprietress of Jacksonville’s most elegant bawdyhouse endures, a shipwreck results in his near drowning, he withstands enemy fire to send dispatches from the Spanish-American War, and then he relocates to England, where Joseph Conrad becomes his closest friend and Henry James weeps over his tragic, early death.

In Burning Boy, Auster not only puts forth an immersive listen about an unforgettable life but also, casting a dazzled eye on Crane’s astonishing originality and productivity, provides uniquely knowing insight into Crane’s creative processes to produce the rarest of listening experiences—the dramatic biography of a brilliant writer as only another literary master could tell it.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company

About Paul Auster

Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Bloodbath Nation, Baumgartner, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. Among his other honors are the Prix Médicis Étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, and the Premio Napoli for Sunset Park. In 2012, he was the first recipient of the NYC Literary Honors in the category of fiction. He was also a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (The Book of Illusions), the PEN/Faulkner Award (The Music of Chance), the Edgar Award (City of Glass), and the Man Booker Prize (4 3 2 1). Auster was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. He died at age seventy-seven in 2024.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Dax on January 16, 2022

My first thought when I began reading this was 'how did Auster manage to write an 800 page biography about a man who lived only 28 years?' I had my answer quickly. Auster is an unabashed fan of Crane, and large sections of this book serve as literary criticism to Crane's most significant work. But y......more

Goodreads review by Nancy on September 07, 2024

I chanced upon the work of Stephen Crane in an unusual way, not by being required to read his famous novel The Red Badge of Courage, but by finding his volume of poetry on the shelves of my high school library. It knocked my socks off and it became one of the first books I purchased for my library.......more

Goodreads review by Rob on December 05, 2024

This book is unbelievably good. I recently reread The Open Boat for the nth time and was reminded that Crane died at TWENTY-EIGHT and once again marveled that he wrote the way he did at such a young age. Did a little digging and found out PAUL AUSTER wrote a bio of him, late in HIS amazing career AN......more

Goodreads review by Steve on July 17, 2021

I’ll be honest with you, I’m commenting on #BurningBoy after only reading the first half. I fully intend to continue on at some point, but not until I have the chance to read more of the subject’s, Stephen Crane, works. I majored in English in college (‘67-‘71), but in my curriculum Stephen Crane fe......more

Goodreads review by Juan on April 01, 2024

En más de mil páginas Paul Auster trae a la vida al olvidado Stephen Crane, escritor norteamericano (1871-1900) que cultivó la novela, cuentos, artículos periodísticos y quién fue además corresponsal de guerra. La biografía que realiza Auster es admirable. Intercala episodios de la convulsionada vida......more


Awards

  • L.A. Times Book Prize - Winner
  • L.A. Times Book Prize - Finalist
  • Boston Globe Best Books of the Year