The Listener: A Novel - Tapa blanda

Heartbreaking and compelling. A sensitive, absorbing story about the need to be heard and the ability to listen.

Basch takes on the many challenges inherent in dealing with issues of personal identity. A powerful story about loving yourself as well as others.

This is a wise novel, full of unexpected twists and turns that lead straight into the intricate center of the heart. Rachel Basch writes with humor and grace about loss, desire, parenting, the conundrums of self-identity, and the many faces of love. Her finely wrought truths echo long after the book is finished. We need them.--Karen Osborn, author of 'Patchwork'

Rachel Basch writes with great insight and a big heart, imbuing her novel with both.--Ann Hood, bestselling author of The Obituary Writer

A riveting, inspiring, keenly smart novel full of brilliant observations about how we become ourselves, how we grow to feel at home both in the world and in our own skin. 'Wow, ' 'wow, ' I wrote in the margins. You won't want it to end.--Bonnie Friedman, bestselling author of 'Writing Past Dark'

Basch is good at plumbing the preoccupations of middle-aged folks and quasi-incestuous New England college towns. The result is not just writing that's good, but writing that's brave.

The Listener is a sharply observed exploration of identity and sexuality. Rachel Basch's engrossing novel captures the complexities of human relationships: both with ourselves and others. Fans of Richard Russo will find much to like in this book.--Michele Filgate, writer

The Listener unfolds like a map, leading us with remarkable clarity through landscapes we thought we knew into the wild territories at the heart of any American family. Rachel Basch uncovers such vital truths about parents, children, lovers, friends--all the people we love and tremble for--that you'll want to put this novel in the hands of everyone you meet and say, Read it now.--Nalini Jones, author of 'What You Call Winter'

Told in alternate voices, this powerful story about human connection and the many shapes that love can take follows school psychologist Malcolm Dowd as he discovers that nothing is predictable when one of his patients, a college freshman named Noah, becomes involved in his life.