A Ladder to the Sky
A Novel
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A Ladder to the Sky
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Narrated by:
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Richard E. Grant
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Richard Cordery
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Nina Sosanya
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Laurence Kennedy
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Written by:
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John Boyne
About this listen
"A satire of writerly ambition wrapped in a psychological thriller... An homage to Patricia Highsmith, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe, but its execution is entirely Boyne’s own." (Ron Charles, The Washington Post)
Named one of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post and Minneapolis Star Tribune
Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for fame. The one thing he doesn’t have is talent - but he’s not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don’t need to be his own.
Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful - but desperately lonely - older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice’s first novel.
Once Maurice has had a taste of literary fame, he knows he can stop at nothing in pursuit of that high. Moving from the Amalfi Coast, where he matches wits with Gore Vidal, to Manhattan and London, Maurice hones his talent for deceit and manipulation, preying on the talented and vulnerable in his cold-blooded climb to the top. But the higher he climbs, the further he has to fall....
Sweeping across the late 20th century, A Ladder to the Sky is a fascinating portrait of a relentlessly immoral man, a tour de force of storytelling, and the next great novel from an acclaimed literary virtuoso.
Praise for A Ladder to the Sky
"Boyne's mastery of perspective, last seen in The Heart's Invisible Furies, works beautifully here.... Boyne understands that it's far more interesting and satisfying for a reader to see that narcissist in action than to be told a catchall phrase. Each step Maurice Swift takes skyward reveals a new layer of calumny he's willing to engage in, and the desperation behind it...so dark it seems almost impossible to enjoy reading A Ladder to the Sky as much as you definitely will enjoy reading it." (NPR)
"Delicious...spins out over several decades with thrilling unpredictability, following Maurice as he masters the art of co-opting the stories of others in increasingly dubious ways. And while the book reads as a thriller with a body count that would make Highsmith proud, it is also an exploration of morality and art: Where is the line between inspiration and thievery? To whom does a story belong?" (Vanity Fair)
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After a tragic accident claims the life of one of her children, Marie Egide is desperate to carve out a fresh start for her family. With her husband and their three surviving children, Marie travels to New Hampshire, where she plans to sell a family estate and then, just maybe, they’ll be able to heal from their grief. Marie’s plans are thwarted when she realizes a war veteran known by locals as “the river witch” is living in a cabin on the property, which she claims was a gift from Marie’s grandfather. If Davina refuses to move on, Marie won’t be able to either.
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What the critics say
"Maurice has the heart of a sniper...marvelously engaging, barbed and witty." (The New York Times Book Review)
"A darkly funny novel that races like a beating heart." (People)
"Maurice Swift may not be much of a novelist, but he inhabits a literary tradition going to back to Patricia Highsmith. Boyne’s protagonist is Tom Ripley as literary climber.... Boyne’s novel is about high literature but has lower, juicier ambitions, at which it wildly succeeds." (Vulture)
What listeners say about A Ladder to the Sky
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- MEW
- 2019-04-27
Quality Voice
I really enjoyed the primary narrator's English accent. It sounded great and was nice to listen to. The novel dives into some saucy adult scenes that I would not have initially suspected when reading the book description provided by the publisher, but I found it to be an interesting audio experience! I thought that I would make a note of the brief flashes of adult content in case anyone is contemplating purchasing this title as a gift for an underage individual or anyone else who is sensitive to this type of material.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous
- 2019-01-04
Worth Waiting For
I was in a situation where I had to listen for about five hours (I was driving by myself). It took me about three hours in to get interested. The whole novel is about writers — not my favorite subjects. I like it when writers describe more diverse social milieus. Also it opens with hours of homosexual obsession. I suppose this would interest others. But once it lurches out of that, the novel gets more complicated and offers some surprises. The ending is more drawn out and clever than I’d prefer. Not as good as Since We Fell or Something in the Water, but worth listening to.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- andrew
- 2021-10-06
Lacking a moral compass
My initial slightly bored response was colored by Erich and his obsessive lust for Maurice which droned on a bit but as the story evolved I understood why this was so important in the set up for later events. Maurice fulfills most of the criteria for psychopathy and is a truly brilliant and loathsome fictional creation, one wonders if Mr Boyne really has come across writers like this in his career. The use of different narrators (reliable or otherwise) for the different parts of the story is refreshing with the best one left for last. Richard E. Grant puts in a showstopper for the final quarter as only he can: wonderful drunken ramblings and deranged delusional fantasies of his own (Maurice's) pure genius. I enjoyed imagining how Gore Vidal would have really responded to a Yorkshire accent if he ever came across one. The scene where the fictional Gore puts Maurice in his place was a beautifully crafted piece of writing. A very clever and revealing novel about the bitchy dog-eat-dog world of publishing fiction.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Michael Bates
- 2019-05-02
Amazing voice talent
Wow! When I first saw the amount of voice actors in this I was surprised - I’m usually a one voice kind of auidobooker, but this book blew me away. Each voice is its own character and narrates its perspective rather than there being a dialogue – which is what I initially thought was going to be the case. The way that the talent was able to convey such a multitude of characters while still feeling individual from each other was astounding. I don’t think I would have liked this book nearly as much as I did if it weren’t for the voice talent.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Maria Dolores
- 2022-05-19
Fitting protagonist for this day and age
I listened to this novel without any idea of its storyline, and in spite of my irritation with the aging gay writer’s naïveté and neediness in the first section, I quickly became fascinated and horrified at once with the Maurice Swift character, wondering how far he would go. What a figure for our troubled times, so selfish, calculating and devoid of moral compass.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Debbie Nemtean
- 2023-02-16
Excellent. couldn’t put it down
The story was quite different than expected. I enjoyed this writers very much and will check out his other books. Although he seems to weigh heavily on homosexuality in his work I have noticed.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- JAM
- 2019-11-19
Thinly disguised porn
Some compelling ideas that could have been really well developed without the constant sexual stream that made this book something I couldn't listen to after 6 or 7 chapters.
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