All the World Can Hold
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to Wish List failed.
Please try again later
Remove from Wish List failed.
Please try again later
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
All the World Can Hold
Narrated by:
Jason Culp, Greta Jung, Erin Ruth Walker
Buy Now for $24.92
-
Narrated by:
-
Jason Culp
-
Greta Jung
-
Erin Ruth Walker
-
By:
-
Jung Yun
About this listen
It’s Sunday, September 16, 2001. Franny and her husband have traded in their elegant Park Avenue co-op for a suite on board the Sonata, a once-glittering cruise ship with a complicated history now long past its prime. Though they’re not “cruise people,” Franny is determined to host the trip as planned because it’s her mother’s seventieth birthday, or chilsun, a major rite of passage celebrated by Korean families. But as her husband keeps pointing out, Franny and her mother aren’t close, and it is surreal—even wrong—to be on a cruise as the death toll from the attacks on 9/11 continues to rise.
Also on board is Doug, an aging actor and former star of Starlight Voyages, the hit Love Boat–style television series famously filmed on the Sonata. With few professional prospects, a now sober Doug has reluctantly joined his former castmates on a reunion cruise for fans of the show, but he dreads the dark specter of his past misdeeds. Meanwhile, Lucy, the only Black female graduate student in her department at MIT, has uncharacteristically accepted an invitation to join her roommate on the cruise during the height of recruitment season. Lucy’s impulsive decision reflects her growing ambivalence about the tech companies that are trying to hire her, including a new one with a strange-sounding name, Google.
All the World Can Hold beautifully explores how we balance our needs and our wants, as well as the regrets we live with and the chances to set them right. And though it’s not a 9/11 novel, it does remind us that while the great world spins, the interpersonal dramas don’t cease, even as more dire ones play out in the larger world.
Critic Reviews
"Narrators Jason Culp, Greta Jung, and Erin Ruth Walker present three distinct portraits in this literary story set on a cruise ship in the week after 9/11. Culp channels regret and loneliness through Doug Clayton, an aging actor who has spent a lifetime behind a mask. Jung infuses resentment and tension into Korean American Franny as she navigates a celebration for her mother’s 70th birthday. Walker brings out frustration in Lucy, a Black MIT graduate student confronting barriers to acceptance. Against the tragic backdrop of 9/11, the novel sensitively explores issues around gender, race, and sexuality as well as questions of identity, family, and friendship. A slow-burning, character-driven story elevated by three compelling performances."
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.