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Native American Heritage Month 2024
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Sign up todayPrudence
Narrator
Chris Patton
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Length
7 hours 50 minutes
Language
English
From a rising Native American writer comes a haunting and unforgettable novel about love, loss, race, and desire in World War II–era America
On a sweltering day in August 1942, Frankie Washburn returns to his family's rustic Minnesota resort for one last visit before he joins the war as a bombardier headed for the darkened skies over Europe. Awaiting him at the Pines are those he's about to leave behind: his hovering mother, the distant father to whom he's been a disappointment, the Indian caretaker who's been more of a father to him than his own, and Billy, the childhood friend who over the years has become something much more intimate. But before the homecoming can be celebrated, the search for a German soldier who has escaped from the POW camp across the river explodes in a shocking act of violence, with consequences that will reverberate years into the future for all of them and that will shape how each of them makes sense of their lives.
With Prudence, Treuer delivers his most ambitious and captivating novel yet. Powerful and wholly original, it's a story of desire and loss and the search for connection in a riven world; of race and class in a supposedly more innocent era. Most profoundly, it's about the secrets we choose to keep, the ones we can't help but tell, and who—and how—we're allowed to love.
David Treuer is the author of several books exploring Native American culture, including Native American Fiction, The Translation of Dr. Apelles, The Hiawatha, and Little. He is Ojibwe from the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. He grew up on Leech Lake and left to attend Princeton University, where he worked with Paul Muldoon, Joanna Scott, and Toni Morrison. David is the recipient of the Pushcart Prize, and his work has been named an editor's pick by the Washington Post, Time Out, and City Pages. His essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Slate.com, and the Washington Post. David also teaches literature and creative writing at The University of Southern California. He divides his time between L.A. and The Leech Lake Reservation.
Chris Patton has been a voiceover artist for over fifteen years and has acted onstage most of his life. A two-time Audie nominee and the winner of an Earphones award, he's voiced over one hundred audiobooks, over two hundred anime titles, many commercials, a handful of video games, and many e-learning and corporate training projects. The frontman and lyricist for the synthpop band Paul Lynde is Dead, he lives in Maryland but is a native Texan.
Reviews
“A wondrous and mesmerizing narrative—intricate, seductive, and wholly gratifying.”
“Treuer’s elegantly bitter fourth novel…expertly vivisects characters who can’t own up to the truth about themselves, showing how the unaddressed damage only deepens over time.”
“His World War II-era novel speaks to the present moment in American history with more eloquence and complexity than the nightly newscast.”
“Treuer’s experience writing about Native American history and culture is apparent in this analysis of race and memory.”
“Combines elements of a mystery, a literary romance, and a Greek tragedy.”
“This gorgeously restrained novel has much to say about race, class, gender, sexuality, love, and war.”
“Chris Patton narrates this rich character study…Patton imparts Frankie’s enthusiasm, which is undermined by his unacceptable love for his boyhood friend. Felix, the Indian caretaker, is portrayed by Patton with the character’s stalwart tranquility, which conceals his fatherly love for Frankie and heartbreak at his loss of family and traditions.”
“A beautiful, somber, unlikely love story.”
“Prudence is an excellent, page-turning mystery and at the same time delves deeply into characters whose lives are rarely portrayed in our literature.”
Treuer’s trenchant and compassionate novel glimmers with nature’s potent beauty, fresh historical detail, and scrupulous insight.”
“[An] understated study of cultures in conflict…[that] explores the darkness at our cores.”
“Perhaps most fitting is the book’s title—which speaks volumes about each character’s integrity, culpability, and resilience in the face of a collective tragedy.”
“Reveals the different worlds inhabited by whites and Native Americans.”
“Prudence’s backstory is meted out gradually, and the way her life intersects with Frankie’s becomes the crux of this powerful story.”
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