Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

By: Dave Eggers

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, Mark Deakins, Michelle Gonzalez, John H. Mayer, Kate McGregor-Stewart, Rebecca Lowman, Bruce Turk, Marc Cashman

Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

From Dave Eggers, best-selling author of The Circle, a tightly controlled, emotionally searching novel. Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? is the formally daring, brilliantly executed story of one man struggling to make sense of his country, seeking answers the only way he knows how.

In a barracks on an abandoned military base, miles from the nearest road, Thomas watches as the man he has brought wakes up. Kev, a NASA astronaut, doesn't recognize his captor, though Thomas remembers him. Kev cries for help. He pulls at his chain. But the ocean is close by, and nobody can hear him over the waves and wind. Thomas apologizes. He didn't want to have to resort to this. But they really needed to have a conversation, and Kev didn't answer his messages. And now, if Kev can just stop yelling, Thomas has a few questions.

Read by MacLeod Andrews with Mark Deakins, Michelle Gonzalez, John H. Mayer, Kate McGregor-Stewart, Rebecca Lowman, Bruce Turk, and Marc Cashman.

©2014 Dave Eggers (P)2014 Random House Audio

wow what a book

for me it was the modern version of the stranger by Albert Camus. loved every minute of it. dense and moving.

Very enjoyable!

Narrators were amazing, it wouldn't have been half as good if I had read it and not listened to it.

This Author is

Amazing I have read several different books of his and not one of them not even one would make you think it came from the same author! this man is a genius the first book I listen to of his wasn't narrated by Dion

Dangerous ideas

This is a very wacky story, all narrative and linear in real time as a complicated heartbreaking tragedy unfolds in 5 rooms all connected in the disturbed mind of Thomas, a man sick of his uninspiring life in a disappointing world but cursed with extraordinary vision into the tragedy of modern civilization.

The way to experience the book

Awesome story, Macleod Arthur is fantastic, really providing life to Thomas as the narrator. A very interesting idea and I loved the way it was done. Eggers is the man!

Usually like Dave Eggers. but...

Struggled to finish. More allegorical than enjoyable. Hero disappointed by his life.not particularly likable, ending unsatisfying.

I went in blind and I'm so very glad I did!

My husband and I listen to audiobooks while we sleep, and the iOS app recently started playing "recommended titles" after another book is done. One of our normal audiobooks finished about 20 minutes before alarms went off, and this one started. I woke up and was immediately pulled into the story the second the narrator changed. (I had purchased it at some point, and just not gotten around to listening to it yet - I'm so very very glad it played the way it did)

I continued listening on my drive to work, and throughout the day. Turns out, my husband did the same thing. He called me at lunch and we were about the same spot in the story. We opted to finish it together, which meant holding off since he could not continue listening due to obligations. I was so distraught at pausing it, that I was distracted the rest of my work day. However, the discussion points brought up in this story were so personal and amazingly needed. Husband and I don't normally listen to the same books at the same time like this, but we were both pulled in. We have differing tastes in books with some overlap -- this story was a draw to both of us for different reasons!

The story was engaging. The writing is (as always with Eggers) phenomenal and descriptive. The conversation style was very well done as a narrative style. I do not generally like multiple narrators in books, but this was played so well in this situation. It helps that MacLeod Andrews is one of my favorite narrators, as is Mark Deakins. The other narrators were equally engaging, and I'm looking forward to looking up other books by these amazing storytellers.

The underlying psychology of the main character (the same draw that pulls so many people to crime-based podcasts of "why would they" or "how could they"), the mounting pressure I felt getting towards the end, not knowing where it was going. The building suspense for everyone's safety and well-being including the main character was palpable for me. Chapter 4 was when I knew I was not going to be able to sleep until I finished this book, because that was where everything shifted. The main character wasn't a reliable story-teller but was also a moral man, a man of principal. I needed the truth, and that would only come out from finishing the whole story

We paused with the last hour left because you can't make time stop so you can finish a book. Responsibly, I tried to sleep, but I could not. This morning there was 57 minutes left – I was so worried for these characters that were stuck in stasis unable to move forward until I finished this narrative!

I devoured the last 57 minutes like I had been chained to a post on a military base in California and this was my freedom.

This book hits so many layers for everyone from every walk of life. It's only gotten more relevant now in 2023 than it was when it was released in 2014.

There is so much here story-wise. I need to go find good analysis break downs to see what other people thought and saw. I need a book club to discuss this book. I need a therapy session after listening to it. I want to just walk around with copies to hand out to everyone of all different walks of life begging them to read this book so we can discuss it and I can figure out why this book has me so obsessed right now.

This book was impactful and will likely sit with me for a long while.

I felt the same way with "The Circle" in 2013. Eggers consistently pulls me in and stabs my literary soul with his story telling, and I can't get enough of it!

D.E. Does It Again

Dave Eggers is a bit of a legend in my eyes. The stories he tells that some how relate to my life eve though the specifics are so far from my experiences. His non-profit 826, is in many ways, a model for my own. He can do no wrong by me.

Eggers finally got back to what he does best

3 months later and this character still comes back to me on a daily basis

we're safe!

what an odd and intriguing story. The multiple narrators made the telling easy to follow. if you're an Eggers fan you will enjoy and if don't know his work, I think this would be a good intro. there is much presented here to contemplate and I'm sure I'll need to give it another listen down the road.