![This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5170qi8I6PS._SL500_.jpg)
This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart
A Memoir in Halves
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $22.29
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Ellora Patnaik
-
Asha Vijayasingham
-
Raoul Bhaneja
-
Written by:
-
Madhur Anand
About this listen
Winner of the 2020 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction
“Wondrously and elegantly written in language that astonishes and moves the reader...This is an important book: an emotional and intellectual tour de force.” (Jane Urquhart)
An experimental memoir about Partition, immigration, and generational storytelling, This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart weaves together the poetry of memory with the science of embodied trauma, using the imagined voices of the past and the vital authority of the present.
We begin with a man off balance: one in one thousand, the only child in town whose polio leads to partial paralysis. We meet his future wife, chanting Hai Rams for Gandhiji and choosing education over marriage. On one side of the line that divides this book, we follow them as their homeland splits in two and they are drawn together, moving to Canada and raising their children in mining towns and in crowded city apartments. And when we turn the book over, we find the daughter's tale - we see how the rupture of Partition, the asymmetry of a father's leg, the virus of a mother's rage, makes its way to the next generation.
Told through the lenses of biology, physics, history and poetry, this is a memoir that defies form and convention to immerse the listener in the feeling of what remains when we've heard as much of the truth as our families will allow, and we're left to search for ourselves among the pieces they've carried with them.
©2020 Madhur Anand (P)2020 Strange LightWhat the critics say
"Wondrously and elegantly written in language that astonishes and moves the reader, Madhur Anand's exquisite and complex memoir explores memory, science, place, migration, relationships, and ecology, and delves deeply into the multiple meanings of partition. This is an important book: an emotional and intellectual tour de force." (Jane Urquhart, author of The Stonecarvers)
"An electrical storm of a book. Sweeping, gorgeous, bold, and piercing, Madhur Anand writes with control and heat, a far-reaching brain and a poet's heart. This Red Line achieves the rarest feat: it takes two asymmetrical halves and assembles them into a whole - as vivid and uneasy as life itself." (Claudia Dey, Heartbreaker and Stunt)
What listeners say about This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Holly B.
- 2024-09-03
I enjoyed the male narrator very much
Yes, I enjoyed the male narrator Raoul Bhaneja very much. Alas, my interest waned considerably with the female narrators.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Stacey Ivits
- 2020-12-30
Complex & thought provoking
The three narrators help the listener to keep track of what part of the narrative is being shared & from whose perspective. I appreciated that the author does not attempt to synthesize the perspectives and trusts the reader/listener to figure it out. I loved many of the specifics and unique history shared. I like the reflection provided in the autobiographical part. However, at moments I found myself a bit lost in some of the formulas & literary quotes and wondered if it would have been better to read a physical copy of this one, than to listen to it? I didn’t find this factor took away from the overarching impression.
It was a captivating story of partition, immigration, and first-generation experiences. It was a coming of age story of parents & child unlike any others I have encountered.
I wasn’t ready for it to end. But that is how it goes.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!