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    The Trout: A Novel
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    The Trout: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Trout: A Novel
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Trout: A Novel

    Written by Peter Cunningham

    Narrated by Jeff Harding

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

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    About this audiobook

    After the publication of his most recent book, Alex Smyth receives a trout fly in the mail at his home address in rural Canada - with no message and no return address.

    It stirs a fear in him that he is being stalked, and it awakens deeply buried, inchoate memories from his childhood in Ireland, a time before he was old enough to understand the adult world around him. It also evokes the guilt that he may have murdered a man, a feeling so strong it changes him and threatens his marriage.

    Soon, in hopes of solving the mysteries that surround him, Alex feels that he has no choice but to return home to Ireland and to his estranged father.

    A novel of great literary beauty that is structured as a tense psychological thriller, The Trout is a tale of predators and prey, deception, and the hidden crimes that can shape a life.

    ©2017 Peter Cunningham (P)2017 Dreamscape Media, LLC

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateJul 4, 2017
    ISBN9781520076096
    Author

    Peter Cunningham

    Peter Cunningham is an award-winning novelist and newspaper columnist, who won the Prix de l'Europe and the Prix Caillou for his historical novel The Sea and the Silence. He is a member of Aosdana, the Irish Academy for Arts and Letters, and he lives with his wife in County Kildare, Ireland.

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    Reviews for The Trout

    4/5

    3 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A great book. It is very well structured. Simple in its style, profound in its message. If you get a chance ....read it. My copy was bought by myself & my views are my own.
    • 4/5
      4+ A quiet but meaningful story about a past that haunts, affecting the present. Alex Smyth, now living in Ontario, Canada has written a book detailing the relationship between he and his father, a man he has not spoken to in many years. A blank sheet of paper is delivered in an envelope, but what freaks him out is it includes a trout fishing fly. Many years ago, and after his mother's death he was raised by his father, the local doctor, and he and his father would often go fishing, sometimes in the company of the village priest. They lived in a small village in Dublin then and he is haunted by something that happened when he was seven, something he doesn't remember but often gets glimpses of, a feeling that he was involved in the death of a man.. His marriage buckling under the strain, he makes the decision to journey back to Dublin, to his past and try to reconnect the pieces of his memory.A simply written but beautifully described novel, the depictions of nature so incredibly beautiful, set against a horrible conspiracy of silence. What happened to a young boy in that village, many young everywhere and those who knew but our equally guilty by their silence, the scope of which is still being uncovered today. Incidents in the past that we little remember or need to forget to move on, but can still rear it's ugly head when we least expect it. As Kay says n the novel, "It takes a whole lifetime to come to terms with what we have hidden as children." Throughout the novel there are various excerpts about trout, how they feed, where they go, the many different colors they are, and if one reads carefully they can see how perfectly this blends into the story being told. I was touched, and appalled because I know much of this, is based on truisms. Written in a very understated manner, highlighting the kind of culture that exists, those who look away instead of confronting, failing to protect the innocent and how these type of situations and others can occur again and again in different circumstances, different places. ARC from publisher.
    • 5/5
      Alex Smyth is living in Canada with his wife when he receives a strange piece of mail containing only a trout fly. Alex has always thought that something terrible had happened when he was a child but the memory is always just a bit past his grasp. Memories now start coming back and he starts to believe that he may have killed someone when he was a child. He must return to Ireland to confront his past and get to the bottom of these fragmented memories.This is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve read in a long time. I’m adding Peter Cunningham to my list of all-time favorite authors and will be reading the rest of his books soon. This book grabbed my heart and wouldn’t let go nor could I put the book down. It was completely mesmerizing and awakened my love for truly well-written literature. I read a lot of books but far too many pass through me without much lasting effect. This is one that I will treasure and always remember.The book touches on how elusive memories can be and how they can harm our lives if not brought to the surface. It also touches on how society can convince itself that what they’re seeing isn’t actually happening. This book is set in such a beautiful location with valleys and hills and rivers and streams and yet what happened there is so tragic and heart breaking. Predator and prey dominate this story and the author has included short snippets about trout and their lives and their most dangerous predator – man. It’s a perfect accompaniment for this story that centers on horrific events that take place while fishing.Most highly recommended.This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.
    • 3/5
      The Trout is a moving story about an Irishman, Alex Smyth, living in Canada for the past 40 years. The book’s name derives from the analogies drawn between trout behavior and human behavior. It is a quick read with lyrical prose. On the whole I liked it, although I thought events were perhaps a little jumbled.For some reason, memories from Alex’s childhood in Ireland begin to haunt him. He becomes convinced that he killed someone, but can’t figure out whom or why. Increasing anxiety strains his relationship with his wife, Kay, to whom he has been married for four decades. As Alex’s behavior becomes more and more erratic, Kay senses that someone is stalking her. Believing that events might be connected – perhaps the stalker is a relative of the person Alex killed – Alex decides to return to Ireland to get to the bottom of his uncertainty.Retrospectively we learn that Alex lived a severe childhood. He had a love-hate relationship with his stern widowed father, and the two remain estranged. We learn that Alex’s lie of omission about well-founded suspicions surrounding a beloved parish priest’s relations with a young boy lead to the suicide of the boy’s uncle. We learn that Alex withdrew from seminary despite his best friend’s and his father’s intransigence (the source of the rift between Alex and his father).By the end of the story Cunningham manages to resolve all the loose ends – Alex’s ambiguous memory, Kay’s stalker, and the tragic lives of Father Charlie’s victims.Two points stick with me about this book; the generational impact of pedophile priests, and the destructiveness of keeping secrets. Decades later, the victims, the victims' families, and the victims' friends are sadly still touched by the aftermath of abuse.