
If I Survive You
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Narrated by:
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Torian Brackett
About this listen
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 BOOKER PRIZE
‘Dazzling’ GUARDIAN
‘Blistering’ THE TIMES
'A delight' DIANA EVANS
‘Fiction written at the highest level’ ANN PATCHETT
'Hilarious, revelatory' MARLON JAMES
An electrifying, hilarious and deeply moving tragicomic debut novel following a Jamaican family grappling with a new life in the US.
‘What are you?’
This is the puzzled question that greets a young Trelawny growing up in a Miami where his racial ambiguity is regarded with confusion and suspicion. It’s not just his neighbours, his Jamaican parents Topper and Sanya don’t seem to understand him either. Then there’s his stubborn older brother Delano, who is determined to secure a better future for his own children, no matter what it takes.
As both brothers navigate the challenges littered in their path – a woefully unreliable father, racism, recession and even a hurricane – they find themselves increasingly at odds. Will they make it through together or must one brother’s future come at the cost of the other?
Shortlisted for the 2024 Gordon Burn Prize
‘An astonishingly assured debut novel … clarity, variety and fizzing prose’ BOOKER PRIZE JUDGES
‘So damn funny’ RUMAAN ALAM
‘Astonishing’ I NEWSPAPER
'Utterly unstoppable’ IRISH TIMES
©2023 Jonathan Escoffery (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers LimitedCritic reviews
‘Blistering … Escoffery writes stinging sentences’ The Times
‘All of life is here in unflinching detail: the fragility of existence, the American dream and the road not taken’ The Booker Prize Judges
‘Thrilling … With much tenderness in the gulf between father and son’ Observer
‘So brilliant it stopped me in my tracks … Astonishing’ iNews
‘Brilliantly energetic… his talent feels fully formed and raring to go’ Financial Times
‘Unmissable… rare in that it has the heft and heart of a novel, with the refined finesse of the short story’ Irish Times
‘Surges with the symphonic, imaginative, propulsive energy of Gabriel García Márquez’ Guardian
‘A compelling hurricane of a book’ Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House
Profound, tender, and laugh-out-loud hilarious, If I Survive You will knock you off your feet and keep you spellbound to the very last page … A must-read. Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King, shortlisted for The Booker Prize
‘Superb… a much-needed new voice’ Percival Everett, author of Erasure
'This I adore… Sumptuous and astute' Diana Evans, author of Ordinary People
‘An elegant meditation on belonging from a powerful new writer’ Nikesh Shukla, author of Brown Baby
‘A dazzling mirror held up to our identity-obsessed time’ Joyce Carol Oates, author of Blonde
‘A gifted, sure-footed storyteller’ New York Times
‘Like nothing you've read before’ Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings
‘So damn funny’ Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind
The fight or flight response
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Powerful message and theme
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Linked short stories about an immigrant family in America
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A story about fathers
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The recklessness of the main character
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The narrator has a voice that is dynamic in all the right places. Excellent at bringing you through each family member. Although it is a book of connected short stories, I didn’t read it with that in the forefront. The stories intertwined in such a way that you understood each person.
Identity, mixed heritage, ethnicity, familial trauma, regrets and motives… a fascinating and yet familiar melting pot for many.
Beautifully written, I look forward to any future works by Escoffery and I’ll certainly check out what else the narrator has worked on to find out what else he can do with his amazing voice!
So good
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This is 8 separate but linked stories, (it took me a while to get that), set around various members of a mixed race Jamaican family who emigrated to America (Miami) in the 1980s, and are just trying to survive as best they can. The family consists of Trelawny, (the main narrator), brother Delano and their parents Topper and Sanya. Chapter 2 is narrated by Topper in his Jamaican patois which I really couldn't understand at all!
Different
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A but of a mishmash but enjoyable
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I really enjoyed Toppers chapter, and think I maybe got a bit more from it if I had been reading from a book rather than listening.
Fantastic narration
Deserved to be shortlisted for the Booker prize 23
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Poor
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