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Sign up todayThe Reservoir Tapes
The Reservoir Series: Book #2
Length
3 hours 17 minutes
Language
English
Narrators
Fiona Hardingham, Justine Eyre, Sarah Nichols, Tim Gerard Reynolds, Ralph Lister & Simon Vance
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Learn moreBookseller recommendation
“The Reservoir Tapes chronicles the disappearance of a young girl in a small English village, with each chapter written from the perspective of a different resident. It’s not an easy writing feat, but Jon McGregor is able to instill a unique narrative clarity for every single character, weaving the young girl’s disappearance with the distinctive stories of each villager. More than a missing persons story, The Reservoir Tapes is about the very universal and human struggle to find meaning and the sacrifices we have to make to feel safe, loved, and truly at home. If you haven’t read anything by Jon McGregor before, make sure not to miss his latest novel!”
— Morgan McComb • Raven Book Store
Returning us to the extraordinary territory of Jon McGregor’s Man Booker Prize long-listed novel Reservoir 13, The Reservoir Tapes take us deep into the heart of an English village that is trying to come to terms with what has happened on its watch.
A teenage girl has gone missing. The whole community has been called upon to join the search. And now an interviewer arrives, intent on capturing the community’s unstable stories about life in the weeks and months before Becky Shaw vanished.
Each villager has a memory to share or a secret to conceal, a connection to Becky that they are trying to make or break. A young wife pushes against the boundaries of her marriage, and another seeks a means of surviving within hers. A group of teenagers dare one another to jump into a flooded quarry, the one weak swimmer still awaiting his turn. A laborer lies trapped under rocks and dry limestone dust as his fellow workers attempt a risky rescue. And meanwhile a fractured portrait of Becky emerges at the edges of our vision―a girl swimming, climbing, and smearing dirt onto a scared boy’s face, images to be cherished and challenged as the search for her goes on.
Jon McGregor is the author of several novels and a story collection. He is the winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literature Prize, Betty Trask Award, and Somerset Maugham Award, and his work has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He is professor of creative writing at the University of Nottingham, where he edits The Letters Page, a literary journal in letters.
Fiona Hardingham is a British-born actress, singer, voice-over artist, and AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator. On stage, she appeared at the Edinburgh Festival in her comedic one-woman show The Dark Show. She has also starred in the dark-comedy short film The Ballerino. She earned a BA honors degree in performing arts from Middlesex University, London, and also studied at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.
Justine Eyre is a classically trained actress who has narrated many audiobooks, earning the prestigious Audie Award for best narration and numerous Earphones Awards. She is multilingual and known for her great facility with accents. She has appeared on stage, with leading roles in King Lear and The Crucible, and has had starring roles in four films on the indie circuit. Her television credits include Two and a Half Men and Mad Men.
Tim Gerard Reynolds is an established audiobook narrator who has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards and was a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for Best Fantasy Narration. He trained for the stage at the Samuel Beckett Center at Trinity College in Dublin and the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center in New London, Connecticut.
Ralph Lister is an actor, voice actor, and AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator. He spent fifteen years in London theater before moving to the United States to focus on film and television. He has held numerous roles in Shakespeare and modern dramas, as well as starring roles in independent films. His voice and character work can be heard in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearland 13 Going On 30. He lives in Los Angeles.
Simon Vance is an award-winning actor and an AudioFile Golden Voice with over fifty Earphones Awards and thirteen prestigious Audie Awards. He was named Booklist’s very first Voice of Choice in 2008 and an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009.
Reviews
“A companion piece to his Man Booker–longlisted Reservoir 13, McGregor’s latest works perfectly well as a stand-alone, offering an alternately sweet and suspenseful depiction of a community as it reacts, person by person, to the disappearance of a teenage girl.”
“An electrifying new novel…stylish and alarming.”
“Turns the concept of a thriller on its head, building suspense through a close examination of the everyday trials of witnesses, neighbors, and those simply passing by. The result is sharp, brooding work about the evils present in men and the cruel desires that lurk just below the surface.”
“McGregor returns to an English village touched by the mystery of a young girl’s disappearance to delve deeper into its daily life…[in] spare, elliptical tales…This collection is a fresh reminder of his versatility and talent.”
“A thriller of another kind, one where the writing is deft and the mood uneasy, this book illuminates the complexities of the human condition in a truly imaginative way.”
“In the follow-up to his Costa Award-winning novel Reservoir 13, McGregor’s newest book focuses on the crime at the center of its predecessor.”
“A brilliant book about social realities…A thriller of another kind, one where the writing is deft and the mood uneasy, this book illuminates the complexities of the human condition in a truly imaginative way.”
“On its own, this book is a noteworthy event. When put in conversation with Reservoir 13, it is nothing short of a remarkable experiment in storytelling. McGregor is a must-read writer.”
“McGregor demonstrates an extraordinary ability to create complex, multidimensional characters in only a few spare sentences. He is also a master of mood, investing his stories with an air of the ominous while proving also to be a superb stylist…A memorable celebration of literary fiction.”
“McGregor is a maestro at demonstrating the reverberations of catastrophe across space and time, building strong backstory and consequences in only a few lines. As a stand-alone, the novel is quietly consuming, but as a companion to Reservoir 13, it serves as an exquisite elaboration on the mysterious characters that are the heart of both novels.”
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