Listening Still: A Novel

by Anne Griffin

Overview

From Anne Griffin, the bestselling author of When All is Said, comes Listening Still, a refreshing new novel about a young woman who can hear the dead—a talent which is both a gift and a curse.

Jeanie Masterson has a gift: she can hear the recently dead and give voice to their final wishes and revelations. Inherited from her father, this gift has enabled the family undertakers to flourish in their small Irish town. Yet she has always been uneasy about censoring some of the dead's last messages to the living. Unsure, too, about the choice she made when she left school seventeen years ago: to stay or leave for a new life in London with her charismatic teenage sweetheart.

So when Jeanie's parents unexpectedly announce their plan to retire, she is jolted out of her limbo. In this captivating successor to her much-lauded debut, When All Is Said, Anne Griffin portrays a young woman who is torn between duty, a comfortable marriage, a calling she both loves and hates and her last chance to break free. Listening Still is a heartachingly honest look at what we give up and what we gain when we choose to follow our heart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250200617
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/01/2022
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

ANNE GRIFFIN’s first novel When All Is Said was a People Magazine Book of the Week and an Indie Next Pick. In the U.K it was a #1 Irish Times bestseller and on the shortlists for the John McGahern Award for Literature, the Hennessey New Irish Writing Award and The Sunday Business Post Short Story Competition. Anne’s work has been featured in The Irish Times and The Stinging Fly. Before becoming a writer, she had an eight-year career as a bookseller at Waterstones. She lives in Ireland with her husband and son.

Editorial Reviews

"There's bags of charm here." —Daily Mail

"Absorbing and heartwarming . . . There are deep thoughts sown beneath the light and charming surfaces of Griffin's novels. Her books are fable-like, deep musings on life, mortality, and what makes a life worth living, philosophy for everyday readers, cleverly disguised as a good old-fashioned story." —Irish Times

"Ireland's long line of magical storytellers is further enriched by Anne Griffin, who follows her poignant debut When All is Said with another outstanding read . . . Griffin explore the tension between instinct and duty in a powerful, moving novel, deftly weaving the strands of the story to create a masterpiece that lingers long in the memory." —Sunday Express

"The setting and its supernatural undertow allow Griffin's humour to sparkle . . . there is a lesson in this quirky account of duty shirked and freedom tasted." —Irish Independent

"Some surprising twists and turns . . . kept me engaged to the end." —Sunday Independent

"A warm and funny read, full of lovely characters and poignant moments." —Good Housekeeping

"A wonderfully unexpected tale of love, death and everything in between." —Graham Norton

"Stunning - a book that surpasses all expectations and thoroughly cements Anne Griffin's place on the short but venerable list of writers whose work is always a must-read. A delicately-hewn delight from first sentence to last." —Billy O’Callaghan

From the Publisher