The Book of Goose cover art

The Book of Goose

A Novel

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The Book of Goose

By: Yiyun Li
Narrated by: Caroline Hewitt
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About this listen

A magnificent, beguiling tale winding from the postwar rural provinces to Paris, from an English boarding school, to the quiet Pennsylvania home where a woman can live without her past, The Book of Goose is a story of disturbing intimacy and obsession, of exploitation and strength of will, by the celebrated author Yiyun Li.

Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised—the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now, Agnès is free to tell her story.

As children in a war-ravaged, backwater town, they’d built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves—until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune, and terrible loss.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

©2022 Yiyun Li (P)2022 Macmillan Audio Coming of Age Friendship Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic Reviews

“Exquisite . . . Knives, minerals, oranges, and the game of Rock Paper Scissors sneak into Agnès’ narrative as she relates the trajectory of a once-unbreakable union. The relative hardness of those substances is a clue to understanding it all. Stunners: Li’s memorable duo, their lives, their losses.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Bringing to mind Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, by way of Anita Brookner’s quietly dramatic prose, [The Book of Goose] makes for a powerful Cinderella fable with memorable characters. It’s an accomplished new turn for Li.”—Publishers Weekly

2023 PEN/Faulkner Award - Winner, Short-listed
2022 Buzzfeed Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2022 BookPage Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2022 New Yorker Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2022 Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2022 Los Angeles Times Holiday Books Guide, Long-listed
2022 Slate Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2022 Time Magazine Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2022 Slate Book Review Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2022 San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year, Long-listed
2022 Powell's Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2023 PEN/Faulkner Award - Nominee, Short-listed
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