A Boy of Good Breeding cover art

A Boy of Good Breeding

Pre-order free with Premium Plus
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

A Boy of Good Breeding

By: Miriam Toews
Narrated by: Susanna Fournier
Pre-order free with Premium Plus

Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Pre-order for $26.99

Pre-order for $26.99

About this listen

A wonderfully warm, witty and wise novel of small-town dreams and eccentric families.

Knute is a twenty-four-year-old single mother who returns home to Algren with her daughter to look after her father Tom, who has suffered a heart attack. Meanwhile, Hosea Funk, a friend of Tom’s and the mayor of Algren has a lot on his mind. The prime minister has promised to pay a visit to whichever town in Canada has the smallest population. Algren has held this position for some time but recent baby booms and returning families, like Knute, threaten to tip Algren over the magic 1500 …

©2014 Miriam Toews (P)2025 Penguin Random House Canada Limited
Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Small Town & Rural World Literature

Critic Reviews

'Barbara Trapido meets Northern Exposure in a topsy-turvy blend of farce and clear-eyed commonsense' Guardian

'A Boy of Good Breeding caught me at the throat, made me laugh and weep with sad-sweet joy … [The characters] get under your skin, and finally, it seems, into your very blood, where they quicken the heart …Tonic for the spirit: a charming, deeply moving, unerringly human story, perfectly shaped and beautifully told' The Globe and Mail

'Reading [Toews] is like climbing into a fizzy bath of lunatic humour … Buried in the mysteries of parenthood, love and death are at least a couple of home truths' Toronto Star

'Seriously funny, rather brilliantly structured and full of characters who speak the same laconic language as Garrison Keillor's in Lake Wobegon' Independent

'Endearing small-town comedy… encroaching a little on Garrison Keillor's territory with a cast of offbeat characters who awkwardly insist on leading their own lives' The Herald

No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.