Ladivine Audiobook By Marie Ndiaye cover art

Ladivine

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The first Tuesday of every month, Clarisse Rivière leaves her husband and young daughter to take the train to Bordeaux and visit her mother, Ladivine. Clarisse has concealed nearly every aspect of her adult life from this woman whom she dreads and despises but also pities, and who knows her as Malinka.

But after 25 years, the idyllic life she has built from scratch cannot survive the walls she's put up to protect it. Her anguish leaves her cold and guarded, her loved ones forever trapped outside, looking in, and then everything comes crashing down. When she is brutally murdered, her daughter will try to work out what happened, and through a mystical logic NDiaye makes utterly persuasive, Clarisse's spirit will be perceived to have lodged itself in a brown dog that watches over her daughter and mother.

Translated from the French by Jordan Stump.

©2016 Editions Gallimard; Translation copryright ©2016 by Alfred A. Knopf (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books Magical Realism Literary Fiction Sagas Thriller & Suspense Genre Fiction Suspense

Critic reviews

"[Narrator Tavia] Gilbert makes NDiaye’s exquisite lyrical prose breathe as she offers poignant portrayals of each character’s anguish.... Mysteries unfold, and time is fluid in this challenging novel, but Gilbert holds us captive throughout." ( AudioFile)

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I stuck with this, but in the end found it weirdly ephemeral and unsatisfying. Lots and lots of pages devoted to the inner workings of key characters’ minds, peppered with what I assume is magical realism. That seemed, to me, either weirdly out of place or badly done. How did the clothing she didn’t pack end up for sale on the country they vacationed in? What’s with Ladivine’s doppelgänger? Not a huge fan of MR in any case so maybe it’s just me. Yes, an interesting story of three generations of family crippled by one woman’s secret. But, I think badly flawed in execution

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