Eat the Document, Dana Spiotta
Eat the Document, Dana Spiotta
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Eat the Document

Author: Dana Spiotta

Narrator: Rachael Warren

Unabridged: 9 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/01/2012

Synopsis

In the heyday of the 1970s underground, Bobby DeSoto and Mary Whittaker—passionate, idealistic, and in love—design a series of radical protests against the Vietnam War. When one action goes wrong, the course of their lives is forever changed. The two must erase their past, forge new identities, and never see each other again.Now it is the 1990s. Mary lives in the suburbs with her fifteen-year-old son, who spends hours immersed in the music of his mother’s generation. She has no idea where Bobby is, whether he is alive or dead.Shifting between the protests in the 1970s and the consequences of those choices in the 1990s, Dana Spiotta deftly explores the connection between the two eras—their language, technology, music, and activism. Character-driven and brilliant, this is an important and revelatory novel about the culture of rebellion, with particular resonance now.

About Dana Spiotta

Dana Spiotta is an author whose novel Stone Arabia was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Eat the Document was a National Book Award finalist and won the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her novel Lightning Field was a New York Times Notable Book of the year. She was a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.

About Rachael Warren

Rachael Warren, an audiobook narrator and actress, is a member of the resident acting company at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island, where she has played such roles as Eliza Doolittle, Sally Bowles, Ophelia, and Portia, as well as originating roles in world premieres by artists such as Paula Vogel and Charles Strouse. Her work has also been seen across the United States at regional theaters and on several national tours.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Violet on October 10, 2018

If you garnered your notion of the USA solely from literature you'd probably end up thinking anti-establishment terrorism was a widespread phenomenon. You might even feel Edgar Hoover wasn't such a nutjob as he appears. The other novel I'm currently reading City on Fire takes up this theme as have c......more

Goodreads review by David on August 17, 2011

"Eat the Document" has an interesting premise -- Mary and Bobby, two sixties radicals, are forced to separate and go underground when their scheme to blow up the summer home of an executive whose company produces napalm (and/or Agent Orange) goes awry, killing an innocent victim. Thirty years later,......more

Goodreads review by Justin on December 01, 2014

This is a perfectly mediocre book, reasonably entertaining, but absolutely wonderful for understanding today's literature. Its successes and its flaws are all so widespread, it's as if I'd found the Platonic form of the Contemporary Novel. Which means this review got a little out of hand. ** I period......more

Goodreads review by Edan on December 03, 2011

This book is worth it for the word "unstoppingly"--God, that adverb made me cry it was so beautiful, its placement so perfect.......more

Goodreads review by Ian on January 12, 2015

1966 Remember 1966? Neither does Dana Spiotta, though/because it was the year she was born. It was the year the Beach Boys released "Pet Sounds" and started the "Smile Sessions". It was the year Bob Dylan undertook a second tour with an electric band, which was filmed in D. A. Pennebaker's documentary......more

Quotes

“Brims with such energy and intelligence…Spiotta has written a glorious sendup of contemporary social and ecological activists with all their preening idealism and absurdity.” New York Times Book Review

“Stunning…The staccato ferocity of a Joan Didion essay and the historical resonance and razzle-dazzle language of…Don DeLillo.” New York Times

“Infused with subtle wit…singularly powerful and provocative…Spiotta has a wonderful ironic sensibility, juxtaposing ’70s fervor with ’90s expediency.” Boston Globe

“Scintillating…Spiotta creates a mesmerizing portrait of radicalism’s decline.” Seattle Times

Awards

  • National Book Award
  • New York Times Book Review Notable Book
  • BookRiot Pick
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