A Likely Story

by Leigh McMullan Abramson, Adam Grupper (Read by), Devon Sorvari (Read by), James Fouhey (Read by), Cynthia Farrell (Read by)

Overview

The only child of an iconic American novelist discovers a shocking tangle of family secrets that upends everything she thought she knew about her parents, her gilded childhood, and her own stalled writing career in this brilliantly observed standout debut.

Growing up in the nineties in New York City as the only child of famous parents was both a blessing and a curse for Isabelle Manning. Her beautiful society hostess mother, Claire, and New York Times bestselling author father, Ward, were the city’s intellectual It couple. Ward’s glamorous obligations often took him away from Isabelle, but Claire made sure her childhood was always filled with magic and love.

Now an adult, all Isabelle wants is to be a successful writer like her father but after many false starts and the unexpected death of her mother, she faces her upcoming thirty-fifth birthday alone and on the verge of a breakdown. Her anxiety only skyrockets when she uncovers some shocking truths about her parents and begins wondering if everything she knew about her family was all based on an elaborate lie.

Wry, wise, and propulsive, A Likely Story is punctuated with fragments of a compulsively readable book-within-a-book about a woman determined to steal back the spotlight from a man who has cheated his way to the top. The characters seem eerily familiar but is the plot based on fact? And more importantly, who is the author?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781797150376
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Audio
Publication date:	03/14/2023
Product dimensions:	5.84(w) x 5.58(h) x 1.08(d)

About the Author

Leigh McMullan Abramson has worked as a lawyer and a journalist. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and more. A Likely Story is her first novel. Leigh lives in New York City and Vermont with her husband and children.

Adam Grupper has narrated audiobooks for bestselling authors such as Michael Connelly, Stephen King, Jeffrey Deaver, and Tom Clancy.  He's read several AudioFile Earphones Award-winning titles, including Alan Weisman's The World Without Us, published by Macmillan Audio, which won AudioFile Best Audiobook of 2007.

 

Grupper’s Broadway performances include Baz Luhrmann’s La Boheme, Guys and Dolls, and Into the Woods.  He has appeared in films such as Trophy Kids, Music & Lyrics, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, and Two Weeks’ Notice.  On television, he has appeared in The Sopranos, Third Watch, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: SVU, Ugly Betty, and As the World Turns.

Devon Sorvari is a graduate of NYU's Circle in the Square and The Classical Studio and has nationwide theatre credits ranging from musicals to Shakespeare. An Earphones Award winner and an Audie Award nominated voice actor, she has narrated more than fifty audiobooks. Specializing in young-adult fiction, she was raised on the East Coast but is based in Los Angeles.

James Fouhey is an actor and AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator living in New York City. He received classical training at Boston University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. He has recorded more than 150 audiobooks across a variety of genres, including science fiction, fantasy, mystery, thriller, YA/teen, and biography and other nonfiction. James has even voiced a rapping kid dinosaur, much to the delight of his mom.


Cynthia Farrell is a professional voiceover artist with experience working on video games, commercials, and audiobooks. An Earphones Award winner, she is known for her portrayal of strong female characters. In addition to her voiceover work, she also has worked off-Broadway as a musical-theater singer ever since she attended New York University's musical-theater program. An English and Spanish speaker, she currently resides in her hometown of Los Angeles.

Mia Barron is an experienced narrator, actress, and writer. Her narration has earned her an Earphones Award, a Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award, and two Audie nominations. A graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, she's appeared on multiple television shows including Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Modern Family, and Bones.

Read an Excerpt

Prologue PROLOGUE
New York, 1989

Claire stood with her back to the bar and surveyed the pulsating mass of people deeply pleased with themselves for being exactly where they were at exactly that moment. The party was an unqualified success. She kept being congratulated, as if it took genius to send invitations, rent out a restaurant—even a hot one like Gotham—and tell her florist, it’s an avian theme, go wild. The maple branches growing out of birdcages were something, but Claire did not take pride in floral arrangements. As she and her husband had grown wealthy to the point of rich, Claire was wary of becoming one of those Upper East Side types who mistook purchased goods and services for accomplishment.

Claire had not read the book. As she nodded and smiled, agreeing with everyone about what a special, important novel it was, this secret blasphemy twinkled pleasantly inside her. Several yards away, the author was in the crowd, holding forth. The noise of the room was too loud for Claire to hear the specifics. After a decade of marriage, Claire couldn’t imagine there was a subject she had not heard Ward expound upon, but she studied him still. By his theatrical gestures and exaggerated facial expressions, he was drunk.

“Can we get these at home, Mommy?”

Claire turned toward Isabelle, who was sitting cross-legged on a stool next to her. The bartender had given Isabelle open access to the tray of maraschino cherries, and she was now holding one aloft by the stem, swinging it talisman-like in front of her face. A viscous, chemical red dripped onto the smocking of her Laura Ashley dress.

“They’re more of a special occasion treat.”

Isabelle sighed. “I thought so.” Isabelle had come with Claire to the hairdresser that day, and her daughter’s blond tresses had been plaited and pinned on her head, threaded with baby’s breath. The long evening had left Isabelle with loose strands and a halo of frizz. And after the cherries there was a subtle, almost clownish red ring around her mouth. Claire felt an ache of love for her only child.

“I took off my shoes,” said Isabelle.

Claire looked down. “So you did.”

Isabelle started to yawn, before stopping herself. “I don’t feel tired at all.” The plan had been to send Isabelle back uptown with a babysitter. But Isabelle had lobbied persuasively to stay. So it was the babysitter who’d left, and Isabelle who remained, now several hours past bedtime.

“Hmmm,” said Claire, kissing her on her head.

“I think I should come to all your parties,” said Isabelle.

“Oh do you?”

Isabelle was looking down, her fingers moving over the charm that hung from her neck on a delicate chain. “Don’t you love my necklace?” she asked, thrusting forward the gold miniature replica of Ward’s new book, custom-ordered at Tiffany’s. God knows how much it had cost. Claire had not been consulted on the purchase.

“It’s very nice.”

Isabelle smiled and began to play with her mother’s hair. A series of sharp pings broke through the noise. Ward’s publicist was standing on one of the banquettes, tapping a knife on a champagne flute. Isabelle looked up.

“Daddy’s going to talk now,” whispered Claire.

Ward took the microphone and climbed onto the banquette, a move that elicited cheers from the audience. Ward raised his fist in triumph, before making a patting motion in the air, like a coach quieting his team. His newly graying hair sprang voluminously from his scalp in a wide circumference. He wore his signature red-framed glasses, cartoonish on anyone who wasn’t arguably the hottest literary writer in America. It was becoming more and more difficult to conceive of the before, the time when her husband had not been the Ward Manning. But not so many years ago, Ward was just another guy with a pile of pages, hustling a manuscript. Once upon a time, standing on a banquette wouldn’t have gotten Ward applause; it would’ve gotten him fired. Now the lavish book parties, the award ceremonies, the inductions, the famous-people dinner soirées bled into one another. Yesterday evening, Nightingale Call had debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Whatever Ward published, people would read it. The number of authors—literary authors—who could do that was small indeed. People recognized him on the street, approached his table in restaurants. Ward was mythical, a god of letters. Just as Ward once promised her, he had become very famous.

Ward smiled without speaking for a long moment, reveling in the hushed anticipation.

“Two years ago, I started this book,” Ward finally said. “I wanted to give myself a challenge.” He paused.

“I decided I’d write about a guy who goes to live with the birds. Try making that not fucking boring.”

A big laugh.

Isabelle giggled. The profanity didn’t seem to have registered. Like everyone else’s in the room, her daughter’s eyes had not moved from Ward. He went on to thank a list of people. Claire raised her glass and smiled when he said her name.

“And my daughter is here tonight.”

Everyone turned to Isabelle and clapped. Isabelle blushed and put her hands over her face, which elicited a collective awwww.

“Come here, sweetheart,” said Ward, beckoning.

Claire had not been alerted that Isabelle was to be part of the show, but she picked Isabelle off the stool. At seven years old, her daughter was almost too heavy for her, but not quite. Claire set her down and smoothed the back of Isabelle’s dress before she took off toward her father. Ward, who’d stepped off the banquette, scooped her up and placed Isabelle on his shoulders. “Isn’t she beautiful?” People whistled. Ward was blatantly using their daughter as a prop, manipulating the crowd with this heartwarming visual, as if he were father of the year. Claire looked at Isabelle, searching for the subtle signs of distress that only a mother would see. Instead she watched as Isabelle took the crowd on, bright-eyed, smiling coyly, her little stocking feet resting on Ward’s chest.

Until that night, Claire was meticulous in shielding their daughter from her father’s fame. And she’d believed that Isabelle was still oblivious. Ward was just her father. But seeing her child aloft at this grown-up party, Claire knew she had been kidding herself. Isabelle knew about her father. She understood what was happening in the room, and she understood the role she could play in it. Claire watched the two of them gamely mug for a photographer from the New York Post. For the first time, it was Claire who was on the outside.

When the applause subsided, Claire watched Ward put Isabelle down on the ground again. He was pulled away by his editor, leaving Isabelle alone. She was suddenly tiny in the sea of full-grown bodies. She looked up at adults carrying on their own conversations, no longer interested, as her smile fell and her brow creased slightly.

Claire bent down to pick up Isabelle’s Mary Janes before pushing through the crowd. She took Isabelle’s hand, put on her shoes, and, without bothering with goodbyes, led her out onto the street. In the taxi, Isabelle lay down with her head in Claire’s lap and was quickly asleep. Claire gazed out the window, a roiling inside her.

Long ago, she had made peace with her bargain. She’d known what she was getting into. Going along with one version of the story, allowing certain truths to be hidden—it hadn’t cost her much. Or so she’d thought. As she blessed the narrative, over and over, year after year, she had never anticipated how she would feel when it was her own daughter who believed in it. Claire longed now to undo what had been done, to make Isabelle understand what was left unsaid. But as she sat in the car, speeding up Park Avenue, Claire feared she was already too late.

Editorial Reviews

Abramson’s clever debut... lands as a thought-provoking meditation on family.” —Publishers Weekly

“In a novel largely about the creation of novels, McMullan Abramson avoids the pitfalls of jargony writing for the in-crowd and instead crafts a universal story about family, dreams, and the stories that linger long after we are gone. Complex characters weigh the benefits of sacrificing their morals to achieve a lasting legacy in this well-told tale.”—Kirkus

"Wry, wise, and propulsive, A Likely Story is punctuated with fragments of a compulsively readable book-within-a-book about a woman determined to steal back the spotlight from a man who has cheated his way to the top."—Belletrist



"A Likely Story expertly unpacks the lives of a famous author, his wife, and their daughter, alternating their narratives with a novel of unknown origin. A smart, keenly-observed look at celebrity, sacrifice, and secrets that is absolutely riveting."—Seira Wilson, Senior Editor of Amazon

“Told as a novel-within-a-novel, A Likely Story is a subtle unfolding of a life led living with a celebrity and the struggle to shine on one’s own merits.” —Authorlink

“A dishy, sophisticated story about an aspiring novelist whose greatest influence (and hindrance) is her own famous father. Moving, enraging, and utterly romantic, A Likely Story is literary gold.” —Courtney Maum, author of The Year of the Horses

“Such a rich, clever story about the pitfalls of loving a celebrity.” —Tracey Lange, New York Times bestselling author of We Are the Brennans

"A Likely Story is a literary page-turner and a thoroughly modern story of family mistakes and redemption that I couldn’t put down." —KJ Dell'Antonia, New York Times bestselling author of The Chicken Sisters

"A standout debut about family, secrets, and the costs of protecting a precious legacy. Abramson skillfully captures the idiosyncrasies of the New York artistic elite and then rips the veil away, revealing characters who are raw, complex, and utterly unforgettable." —Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Magnolia Palace

"I loved this sharp, multi-layered tale about the highly combustible relationship between love and ambition. Filled with family secrets, pitch-perfect details, and engagingly complex characters, it kept me hooked from page one." —Alexandra Andrews, author of Who is Maud Dixon

"In Abramson's psychologically rich and engrossing debut, the lives of New York literati are rendered in pitch-perfect, delicious detail, as a hidden manuscript exposes a web of family secrets—and inspires an audacious deception. A Likely Story is a testament to the power of fiction not just to imitate life, but to control it. I couldn't stop reading." —Jonathan Vatner, author of Carnegie Hill and The Bridesmaids Union

From the Publisher