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Brood

A Novel

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Brood

Written by: Jackie Polzin
Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
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About this listen

An exquisite new literary voice - wryly funny, nakedly honest, beautifully observational, in the vein of Jenny Offill and Elizabeth Strout - depicts one woman's attempt to keep her four chickens alive while reflecting on a recent loss.

“Full of nuance and humor and strangeness … [Polzin] writes beautifully about everything.” (The New York Times)

Over the course of a single year, our nameless narrator heroically tries to keep her small brood of four chickens alive despite the seemingly endless challenges that caring for another creature entails. From the 40-below nights of a brutal Minnesota winter to a sweltering summer which brings a surprise tornado, she battles predators, bad luck, and the uncertainty of a future that may not look anything like the one she always imagined.

Intimate and startlingly original, this slender novel is filled with wisdom, sorrow, and joy. As the year unfolds, we come to know the small band of loved ones who comprise the narrator's circumscribed life at this moment. Her mother, a flinty former home-ec teacher who may have to take over the chickens; her best friend, a real estate agent with a burgeoning family of her own; and her husband, whose own coping mechanisms for dealing with the miscarriage that haunts his wife are more than a little unfathomable to her.

A stunning and brilliantly insightful meditation on life and longing that will stand beside such modern classics as H is for Hawk and Gilead, Brood rewards its listeners with the richness of reflection and unrelenting hope.

©2021 Jackie Polzin (P)2021 Random House Audio
Animals Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Fiction Marriage Witty Funny
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What the critics say

2022, American Academy of Arts and Letters Lit. Award

2022, Art Seidenbaum Award

2021, Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

“You will love this book…The voice is wry and rare…As with Sigrid Nunez or Jenny Offill, one feels that the narrator of Brood is very close to the author.”
Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Wondrous…Her observation of the fragility and loveliness of daily life is so sharp and her commentary so droll, trenchant and precise, that the modest world she describes becomes almost numinous.” —Washington Post

"A debut novel about chickens? Yes, indeed. And it's full of nuance and humor, not to mention the very human travails of their grieving owner. Polzin has a gift for detail and an eye for the way little creatures can absorb and sometimes erase our worries." —New York Times Book Review

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