Late Nights on Air
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Late Nights on Air
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Narrated by:
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Elizabeth Hay
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Written by:
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Elizabeth Hay
About this listen
The Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning novel from Elizabeth Hay.
Harry Boyd, a hard-bitten refugee from failure in Toronto television, has returned to a small radio station in the Canadian North. There, in Yellowknife, in the summer of 1975, he falls in love with a voice on air, though the real woman, Dido Paris, is both a surprise and even more than he imagined.
Dido and Harry are part of the cast of eccentric, utterly loveable characters, all transplants from elsewhere, who form an unlikely group at the station. Their loves and longings, their rivalries and entanglements, the stories of their pasts and what brought each of them to the North, form the centre. One summer, on a canoe trip four of them make into the Arctic wilderness (following in the steps of the legendary Englishman John Hornby, who, along with his small party, starved to death in the barrens in 1927), they find the balance of love shifting, much as the balance of power in the North is being changed by the proposed Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, which threatens to displace Native people from their land.
With unforgettable characters, vividly evoked settings, in this award–winning novel, Hay brings to bear her skewering intelligence into the frailties of the human heart and her ability to tell a spellbinding story. Written in gorgeous prose, laced with dark humour, Late Nights on Air is Hay’s most seductive and accomplished novel yet.
On the shortest night of the year, a golden evening without end, Dido climbed the wooden steps to Pilot’s Monument on top of the great Rock that formed the heart of old Yellowknife. In the Netherlands the light was long and gradual too, but more meadowy, more watery, or else hazier, depending on where you were. . . . Here, it was subarctic desert, virtually unpopulated, and the light was uniformly clear.
On the road below, a small man in a black beret was bending over his tripod just as her father used to bend over his tape recorder. Her father’s voice had become the wallpaper inside her skull, he’d made a home for himself there as improvised and unexpected as these little houses on the side of the Rock — houses with histories of instability, of changing from gambling den to barber shop to sheet metal shop to private home, and of being moved from one part of town to another since they had no foundations.
—From Late Nights On Air
What the critics say
“Psychologically astute, richly rendered, and deftly paced. It’s a pleasure from start to finish.” (Toronto Star)
“Hay exposes the beauty simmering in the heart of harsh settings with an evocative grace that brings to mind Annie Proulx.” (Washington Post)
“Invites comparison with work by Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood. Outside Canada, one thinks of A.S. Byatt or Annie Proulx.” (Times Literary Supplement)
Featured Article: 19 Award-Winning Canadian Fiction Audiobooks to Add to Your Listening List
Canada knows how to write a story, and it has the awards to prove it. These 19 incredible audiobooks are Canadian fiction at its award-winning best.
What listeners say about Late Nights on Air
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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Story5 out of 5 stars
- daphwood
- 2021-07-04
Best reading ever
The sweetness of this narration is so marvellous & wise & touching. I so enjoyed the intelligence & humanity of it. I can’t wait to read another book by her!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Hallie Mitchell
- 2024-03-25
Poetic narration
Most beautiful narration I’ve ever heard. Stunning. Perfect to hear the story in the author’s voice.
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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
- Debra Williamson
- 2022-07-30
Amazing!
So well written, you can imagine the characters so vividly. So well read with the author reading the book. Absolutely love it.
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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
- abzoomer
- 2022-12-12
Sensitive, beautifully written.
Having lived in the North, Hays writing captured the essence of the land and the human tensions of living in a place that you love, but know you will leave.
Affected me deeply
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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
- Amazon Customer
- 2021-10-10
Excellent
The story is riveting, and the narrator entirely credible and easy to listen to.
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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
- CherylN
- 2023-11-06
A compelling story!
Loved the characters lives weaving in and out over the years. The telling of the canoe trip was riveting. The descriptive language used to colour the landscape and covey emotion was outstanding.
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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
- Janet Spies
- 2023-01-28
Audio Applaudable!
I couldn’t get into the book but thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Hay’s voice as she told this endearing story of the north.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- CKH
- 2023-04-01
Suprised I finished this...
This won a Giller award? I’m sorry, while it was a beautifully written book all the characters were boring. Even Harry, who is the most interesting, by the end of the book I didn’t care what happened to him. The background of the history in the 70s in Yellowknife I found sufficiently interesting to keep on reading. But it was a wearisome book.
When I started this novel I thought it was set in the early 1950s as it had that kind of period feel to the writing. I was very surprised that this was a 1970s novel. It just didn’t quite jibe and I’m not sure whether that was because of where it was set or because of the style of the author.
Lastly this was a clear occasion where the author should not have narrated the audiobook. She had a lovely clear voice but her narration style was a touch monotone.
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1 person found this helpful