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The Echoes

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The Echoes

By: Evie Wyld
Narrated by: Vivien Carter, Sebastian Humphreys
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Max didn’t believe in an afterlife. Until he died.

As a reluctant ghost trying to work out why he remains, Max watches his girlfriend Hannah lost in grief in the flat they shared and begins to realise how much of her life was invisible to him. In the weeks and months before Max’s death, Hannah is haunted by the secrets she left Australia to escape.

A relationship with Max seems to offer the potential of a different story, but the past refuses to stay hidden. It finds expression in the untold stories of the people she grew up with, the details of their lives she never knew and the events that broke her family apart and led her to Max.

Both a celebration and autopsy of a relationship, The Echoes is a novel about stories and who has the right to tell them, asking what of our past can we shrug off and what is fixed forever.

'A book that will stay with you forever' OBSERVER
'Sharp prose weaving intergenerational trauma and a ghost story' SINÉAD GLEESON
'It takes brilliance to leap into the darkness' ANNE ENRIGHT
'My favourite Wyld novel' PAULA HAWKINS

©2024 Evie Wyld (P)2024 Penguin Audio Genre Fiction Ghosts Horror Literary Fiction Psychological Haunted

Critic reviews

Unsettling, vivid, and beautifully written (Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground)
All stars
Most relevant  
Beautifully written novel about stories, silence and ghosts. So many themes and ideas, such rich prose, but all handled with such a light touch and a load of humour.

Superb storytelling

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Enjoyed the concept and the ending. Wasn’t really invested in Hannah - not especially likeable. Mainly didn’t like the female narrator. Kept pausing in the wrong places and lacked expression.

Great idea but didn’t live up to its promise

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if only the story in Australia had been as compulsive as the ghost story, still good overall.

Brilliant ending!

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Wanted to like it more than I did, found it difficult to follow, maybe that’s just me. Found myself not understanding the story frequently. Despite this I really liked the authors ability to pin point day-to-day happenings and moments into words, things you never usually think about, so when you hear them noted down it resonates with you.

The writing

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I’d never heard of the award-winning Australian writer Evie Wyld before noting a Guardian recommendation. I’ll definitely be back for more – I loved it! It’s SO unusual: tragi-funny, shocking, witty-sharp, heart-breaking, powerfully positive, honest but non-judgemental, resonating, intensely alive and linguistically and stylistically adventurous!

Hannah and Max have been together for six years living in London where Max is a creative writing teacher and Hannah has left behind a troubled past in Australia which she keeps well under wraps. They have reached that stage: should they get married? Should they have children? That the book begins with Hannah recovering from a termination which she has had without telling Max sets off this dislocated and fragmented novel. Through twists and turns the narratives of Hannah and Max alternate, delving more and more deeply into each of them. Vivien Carter and Sebastian Humphreys, the two narrators, add to the listening enjoyment, both of them absolutely in tune with their characters.

The Echoes of the tile is the area of Australia where Hannah endured her childhood, but more importantly they are the inescapable repercussions of those years of her unfeasibly dysfunctional family. Uncle Tone’s treatment of her sister Rachel on the struggling family’s goat farm is just one of many strands of the resounding echoes , unresolved in Hannah’s life in London. (Incidentally, if your Christmas dinner guests didn’t gel as well as you had hoped, wait till you witness the culture clash in Max and Hannah’s London flat. We’ve all been there!)

The novels’ structure across continents and decades is assured and satisfying, and includes an idea which just shouldn’t work. Max dies partway through and his narration becomes spectral, allowing him to analyse the relationship between him and Hannah from his point of view, and to observe her life without him from above. I’m not a supernatural fan, but against all odds. this works brilliantly!

I loved it!

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Superbly narrated by VC and SH, who complement each other well. This ties in beautifully with the punctuated style of the story - cycling through the 'After', 'Before', and 'Then' of Hannah and Max's lives, with character-specific chapters in the mix as well. Wyld somehow manages to present the brooding, quietly burrowing pain and torturous elements of trauma, in the form of this seemingly soft and gentle tale. For all intents and purposes the family are standard - they have history, carry marks from poor choices and mistakes, raise smiles at their quirks and oddities, and ultimately live to realise hopes, feel connected, and be loved. The traumas take various forms - historical, cultural, sexual, emotional, etc., and are perfectly interlaced within the various sub-stories, showing themselves as intrinsically linked as each story builds as part of the greater story arc. It’s so well written, I’m confused and a little dumbfounded - how can a book so focused on trauma can feel so warm and comforting

Slightly confused - happily!

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I really liked the premise of this book, but I found the story really hard to follow, and the narrator was a bit too full on for my liking.

Started out so well

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