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    The Widower's Tale: A Novel
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    The Widower's Tale: A Novel
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    The Widower's Tale: A Novel
    Audiobook17 hours

    The Widower's Tale: A Novel

    Written by Julia Glass

    Narrated by Mark Bramhall

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In a historic farmhouse outside Boston, seventy-year-old Percy Darling is settling happily into retirement: reading novels, watching old movies, and swimming naked in his pond. His routines are disrupted, however, when he is persuaded to let a locally beloved preschool take over his barn. As Percy sees his rural refuge overrun by children, parents, and teachers, he must reexamine the solitary life he has made in the three decades since the sudden death of his wife. No longer can he remain aloof from his community, his two grown daughters, or, to his shock, the precarious joy of falling in love.

    One relationship Percy treasures is the bond with his oldest grandchild, Robert, a premed student at Harvard. Robert has long assumed he will follow in the footsteps of his mother, a prominent physician, but he begins to question his ambitions when confronted by a charismatic roommate who preaches-and begins to practice-an extreme form of ecological activism, targeting Boston's most affluent suburbs.

    Meanwhile, two other men become fatefully involved with Percy and Robert: Ira, a gay teacher at the preschool, and Celestino, a Guatemalan gardener who works for Percy's neighbor, each one striving to overcome a sense of personal exile. Choices made by all four men, as well as by the women around them, collide forcefully on one lovely spring evening, upending everyone's lives, but none more radically than Percy's.

    With equal parts affection and satire, Julia Glass spins a captivating tale about the loyalties, rivalries, and secrets of a very particular family. Yet again, she plumbs the human heart brilliantly, dramatically, and movingly.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 7, 2010
    ISBN9780739383100
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Widower's Tale

    3.5/5

    307 ratings41 reviews

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    • 4/5
      An intriguing tale of a family dealing with the curves offered by life, some of it seemingly far fetched and including more families than the primary one.
    • 4/5
      Lots of things going on. Lots of people I could easily relate to. How's it going to turn out for Percy and for the others in the story? I love Percy's educated diction.
    • 4/5
      At some point I began listening to this book, but coming back to it to read, I found the story rich - from Percy, main character, to Celestino, a minor supporting character, each has to confront the complacency in their lives and accept a more realistic view. Lovely.
    • 2/5
      Took a long time to get involved with the characters of this story. Just didn't have the time.
    • 4/5
      I have read all of Julia Glass's books and I thought that this one was the best. Although the cast of characters may have seemed excessive she eventually made it all work together. There were elements of the story that seemed hard to accept in terms of how a character might react, but that was my personal bias. It did a great job of portraying an upper class community. Glass had her elements of satire and poking at this upper crust group and of course the overall tone of the book has a liberal slant. If you have not read anything by Julia Glass, I suggest starting with "Three Junes" but then read this one next. I was happy to see her 4th novel take an uptick from the previous 2. A good sign that the author may have peaked earlier.
    • 4/5
      I tried and abandoned "Three Junes," by this author, so I wasn't sure I'd enjoy this one. Turns out, Julia Glass's writing style and cast of characters was exactly what I wanted to read at the moment. This book was fantastic. Another easy to read yet intelligently written book to sink into when you want pure, lovely escapism.
    • 3/5
      The writing is pretty good, some wit, good diction, reasonable pace. Percy's story (the preschool, the treehouse, Sarah, etc) is interesting. But his First Person POV is interspersed with Third Person narrative about Ira, Robert, or Sagastino. While their stories are well enough, I didn't enjoy them as much. I would have preferred more Percy. It's almost like the author had four short stories and blended them together to make a full length novel. Did I mention I liked the quality of the writing?
    • 5/5
      When retired librarian Percy Darling allows his barn to become a preschool to help his older daughter, his solitary life is transformed and the ripples affect his entire family and community. After three decades of not questioning his widower status, Percy falls in love with a younger woman. Then, his well-meaning grandson is pulled into eco-activism that escalates into violence.

      Narrating through the sharply drawn perspectives of Percy, his grandson Robert, a Guatemalan gardener, and a gay teacher at the preschool, Julia Glass tells a compelling tale of family loyalty and betrayal and the often unexpected consequences of our actions. As always, Glass renders her characters with wit, insight, and generosity for their human quirks and faults. I really loved this book.
    • 4/5
      A wonderful story of family and relationships. It took me forever to read, but it was worth it.
    • 5/5
      Julia Glass’s fourth novel is a charming, richly plotted book that chronicles the lives of 70-year-old Percy Darling and his daughters Clover and Trudy, along with their extended family and friends. Percy’s wife Poppy died more than 40 years before the book begins, while their daughters are still teenagers. After he has finished raising the girls, Percy settles into a life of solitude in his historical house in the small town Matlock, Massachusetts. Trudy, the younger of his daughters, is a successful, well-known oncologist in Boston; she and her husband, a divorce-mediator, have a perfect son Robert, a Harvard student, who is very close to his grandfather. Clover meanwhile has recently moved back to Matlock, taking a “sabbatical” from her husband and young children, a decision she comes to regret. She finds a job as a teacher at the local preschool “Elves and Fairies,” which has recently lost its lease, and she convinces her father to let them convert his barn to a new preschool and to build a huge treehouse on his property for the children to play in.As in Glass’ earlier novels, “The Widower’s Tale” has a large cast of characters, each with a complex and compelling story, including Ira, a gay teacher at Elves and Fairies; Celestino, a Guatemalan gardener who works in Matlock; Sarah, a middle-aged single mother who becomes involved with Percy; and Arturo (Turo), Robert’s roommate who joins an environmental activism group known as DOGS—Denounce our Greedy Society—which enacts a set of pranks, such as stuffing a Hummer with corn husks, that eventually spiral out of control. Part of Glass’ genius is to seamlessly weave all these stories together in a way that quietly shows how interconnected we really are.“The Widower’s Tale” is funny, warm, and a wonderful read.
    • 5/5
      A delightful story of the ups and downs of family and extended family. The center of this family is Percy Darling, the 70 year old widower and father of Clover and Trudy, and grandfather of three others. Although fiction, this story could be any family's story. I loved the setting, modern New England, and the description of the people and setting. I believe I read the author's THREE JUNES, but don't remember enjoying it as much. A very good book!
    • 5/5
      I love this book! Captures so many things about how we live now -- changes in our towns, the choices and difficulties still confronting gay Americans, children who grow up and those who don't. A truly wise and entertaining book from Julia Glass.
    • 4/5
      Percy Darling lost his wife young. After raising his two daughters alone he looks forward to a quiet retirement in his suburban home. But quiet does not seem to be his. Percy is convinced to allow a preschool to open in his barn. Said preschool will employ his daughter Clover, who never quite got her life together. The preschool,and those who travel in its orbit, will set in motion a chain of events that will fundamentally reshape the lives of everyone involved.In this book Glass has drawn a complex web of characters, each deep and intriguing. They range from a Harvard student seduced by an eco-terrorist group to an illegal immigrant gardener pining for a lost love to a preschool teacher subjected to undue harassment. Glass has crafted a beautifully complicated plot. There were certain things I didn't understand, such as Trudy's reaction to her son's activities. Nor did I understand why the town was so opposed to the environmental group's activities when they were doing little more than putting up signs. That activity changes, but what happened early in the book didn't seem to be so terrible. Still, a well-written and complicated book, worth the time it takes to read.
    • 4/5
      Readable, but frustrating book.
    • 3/5
      I read this for my book discussion group. It is not something I would have ever picked up on my own. For a discussion group though there is quite a bit to talk about. It did make for a good discussion.
    • 4/5
      Great characters! I love Percy Darling especially. He's funny and no nonsense. While I did find the plot to be rather predictable, Glass's writing is so good that I gladly kept reading. Definitely recommend.
    • 4/5
      After his wife's accidental drowning, Percy Darling devotes his life to his daughters, Clover and Trudy, his job as librarian, and the beautiful old home he and Poppy purchased soon after marrying. Now 70, retired, and content, he recognizes the need to open himself up to more of life. He is very proud of Trudy, now a successful and capable oncologist, happily married, with a son in Harvard; and concerned over Clover who is floundering as usual. He allows an upscale nursery school to utilize his barn in exchange for a job for Clover. He meets some wonderful people through the school, enjoys time with Trudy's son, Robert and finds love. The Widower's Tale deals with themes of old money, history, deception and perception using strongly developed characters and great timing. Glass excels at showing family dynamics; pinpointing little flaws which work themselves into larger cracks with unexpected results. Better than expected.
    • 5/5
      The Widower's Tale is one of those books I closed wistfully, sad to say goodbye to all my new friends. The ensemble cast is headed by Percival Darling, a 70-year-old retired librarian from Harvard, and the widower of the title. At the start of the novel, he is confronted by drastic change in his life when he allows the barn adjacent to his historic Massachusetts home to be converted to a progressive pre-school. Meanwhile, he has to cope with two difficult daughters, a budding romance, and a grandson who (unbeknownst to the family) is involved with a group of eco-terrorists.It's a good story with dramatic plot twists, but the characters are the appeal here. Percy's is a wonderful voice: an educated Luddite who wittily disapproves of most of what he sees around him in 21st century life. He has kept himself well defended since the tragic death of his wife, and the most satisfying part of the book is watching him grow and change as he is confronted with the human frailty of those he loves. And frail they all are, but only one of these characters is thoroughly unlikeable. My only problem with the book is that I wish it were longer. Maybe we can convince Glass to do a sequel.
    • 3/5
      This book was just an okay read for me. It is about a widowerer and his interaction with his family and friends after his wife suddenly dies.
    • 5/5
      What a great book! One of those you truly hate to end or you wish there was a short sequel (epilogue?) I just got so attached to everyone in the book. Each character so fully drawn that you really knew them. The firat 75 pages were a little hard to get through but I am so glad I persevered. Julia Glass is one of my fav's. Like Three Junes, the first book of hers I read, this one just pulls you in. Laughing, crying, and just plain opld shaking you head!
    • 4/5
      Glass was very ambitious when she wrote this book. Percy Darling, the family patriarch provides the point of view and just one of the plotlines. Many stories are laid out in this book, centered around the Darling home in Matlock. In fact, are too many and, as a result, none of them resonate fully. The writing was good but it was too sprawling and unfocused.
    • 3/5
      It;s good, but seems to drag. I skipped some of the part where Percy finds Sarah's lump. I skipped to the end and hoped they would bring it all together.
    • 3/5
      For plot summary, you can read other reviews. My comment about this book is that the plot takes an awfully long time to get going. About three quarters of the book is set up; I almost gave up on it and set it aside. Lots of character developement early on, some of it seemingly unrelated. Things finally come together in the final quarter. This book has received some fabulous reviews. I wasn't quite that enamored with it.
    • 4/5
      A complex and warm exploration of the mix of family and friends.
    • 5/5
      "The Widower's Tale" follows a year in the life of Percy Darling, a 70 year old widow who lives in Matlock, a town in suburban Boston. Percy has been a widow for most of his adult life, after his wife died in a tragic drowning when his two daughters, Clover and Trudy, were young. Percy is happy with the solitude of his bachelor's life and worries that it will be disrupted when he agrees to allow a preschool to move into his barn. Over the next year, the preschool and the people he meets through it, will completely change Percy's life. Percy will rediscover love, his daughters, the true character of his town and will have what he holds closest challenged. "The Widower's Tale" is a complex and rich novel with a lively and diverse ensemble of characters. Although the novel focuses on Percy, Glass uses different narrators in different chapters of the novel to focus in on different aspects of her story. This is an effective technique which allowed me as a reader to identify with the challenges and motivations of each character. This novel is really complex, with many subplots, but Glass does a suberb job of tying them all together to make a tightly woven novel. I really enjoyed ever bit of this novel, from the first page to the last! This was the first novel I have read by Julia Glass, but it won't be my last!
    • 3/5
      quick easy read that I will forget about very quickly.
    • 4/5
      The title of The Widower's Tale is a bit deceptive, because it is three stories rolled into one novel. As well as the widower's story, it is also the tale of Robert, the widower's grandson and the tale of Celestino, a gardener who works for the widower's next door neighbor. Other characters are also explored in the book, but it is primarily from the point of view of these three we see the world. The widower is Percy Darling, a sixty-nine year old man who lost his wife when they were in their late thirties. He hasn't dated anyone since then, which might be due to a sense of guilt. Although he wasn't responsible for his wife's death there were some issues on the day she died. Percy starts seeing Sarah, a fifty-one year-old artist who works with stained-glass. The age difference isn't much of an issue, but the difference in the way they look at the world is.Robert, Percy's grandson, has a roommate, Turo, who is involved in environmental activism, expressed through pranks some people see as vandalism. Robert gets sucked into Turo's activities and the story goes on from there.Meanwhile, Celestino's life is also explored. He is an immigrant from Guatemala who came to America when a professor at Harvard noticed his potential. But a mixture of bad luck, bad decisions, and a romantic nature forced Celestino to run off and turn to manual labor for his income.All three of these stories read well. I love the way the narratives touch each other throughout the book. I was also impressed with the way Julia Glass changes her style depending on whose point of view she's writing. Percy is a retired librarian and thinks in an scholarly style. The language in the Robert and Celestino sections is straight forward and reads faster.Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul, White Horse Regressions, Hopatcong Vision Quest, and Under a Warped Cross.
    • 5/5
      Julia Glass?s fourth novel is a charming, richly plotted book that chronicles the lives of 70-year-old Percy Darling and his daughters Clover and Trudy, along with their extended family and friends. Percy?s wife Poppy died more than 40 years before the book begins, while their daughters are still teenagers. After he has finished raising the girls, Percy settles into a life of solitude in his historical house in the small town Matlock, Massachusetts. Trudy, the younger of his daughters, is a successful, well-known oncologist in Boston; she and her husband, a divorce-mediator, have a perfect son Robert, a Harvard student, who is very close to his grandfather. Clover meanwhile has recently moved back to Matlock, taking a ?sabbatical? from her husband and young children, a decision she comes to regret. She finds a job as a teacher at the local preschool ?Elves and Fairies,? which has recently lost its lease, and she convinces her father to let them convert his barn to a new preschool and to build a huge treehouse on his property for the children to play in.As in Glass? earlier novels, ?The Widower?s Tale? has a large cast of characters, each with a complex and compelling story, including Ira, a gay teacher at Elves and Fairies; Celestino, a Guatemalan gardener who works in Matlock; Sarah, a middle-aged single mother who becomes involved with Percy; and Arturo (Turo), Robert?s roommate who joins an environmental activism group known as DOGS?Denounce our Greedy Society?which enacts a set of pranks, such as stuffing a Hummer with corn husks, that eventually spiral out of control. Part of Glass? genius is to seamlessly weave all these stories together in a way that quietly shows how interconnected we really are.?The Widower?s Tale? is funny, warm, and a wonderful read.
    • 5/5
      Julia Glass’s fourth novel is a charming, richly plotted book that chronicles the lives of 70-year-old Percy Darling and his daughters Clover and Trudy, along with their extended family and friends. Percy’s wife Poppy died more than 40 years before the book begins, while their daughters are still teenagers. After he has finished raising the girls, Percy settles into a life of solitude in his historical house in the small town Matlock, Massachusetts. Trudy, the younger of his daughters, is a successful, well-known oncologist in Boston; she and her husband, a divorce-mediator, have a perfect son Robert, a Harvard student, who is very close to his grandfather. Clover meanwhile has recently moved back to Matlock, taking a “sabbatical” from her husband and young children, a decision she comes to regret. She finds a job as a teacher at the local preschool “Elves and Fairies,” which has recently lost its lease, and she convinces her father to let them convert his barn to a new preschool and to build a huge treehouse on his property for the children to play in.As in Glass’ earlier novels, “The Widower’s Tale” has a large cast of characters, each with a complex and compelling story, including Ira, a gay teacher at Elves and Fairies; Celestino, a Guatemalan gardener who works in Matlock; Sarah, a middle-aged single mother who becomes involved with Percy; and Arturo (Turo), Robert’s roommate who joins an environmental activism group known as DOGS—Denounce our Greedy Society—which enacts a set of pranks, such as stuffing a Hummer with corn husks, that eventually spiral out of control. Part of Glass’ genius is to seamlessly weave all these stories together in a way that quietly shows how interconnected we really are.“The Widower’s Tale” is funny, warm, and a wonderful read.
    • 2/5
      story and plot ok but too many characters with thier POV.