Jones

De: Neil Smith

Narrado por: Ishan Davé

Duración: 8 h y 54 m

Resumen del Editor

From the award-winning author of Bang Crunch and Boo, Jones is the harrowing, funny, utterly unforgettable story of a pair of siblings attempting to survive the horror show of their family.

Abi and Eli share a special bond. Eli looks up to his sister Abi, two years older, who knows how to inhabit the souls of animals, and sometimes even the soul of her brother. They share jokes, codes, and an obsession with impressive feats of word power—such are the survival tricks for growing up Jones. Pal, their alcoholic father, is haunted by demons from the Korean War, and their less-than-nurturing mother Joy hasn’t got the courage to leave him. Always moving to where Pal gets work, the Joneses go from Montreal to Boston, Salt Lake City, Chicago, and back to Montreal. No matter where they go, though, they can never get away from Jones Town.

And then, on Eli’s twelfth birthday, the darkness deepens when he stumbles on something he doesn’t understand—an episode that represents the beginning of Abi’s unraveling, although no one knows it yet. Over the years, Eli and Abi lurch towards and into adulthood on separate paths that sometimes cross, negotiating the world through sexual experimentation, drugs and alcohol, art and language.

Searing, affecting and often darkly funny, Jones explores the treacherous intersection between love and violence, and the extreme measures Abi and Eli must take to escape the legacy of a toxic inheritance.

©2022 Neil Smith (P)2022 Random House Canada

Reseñas de la Crítica

2022, Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction: Short-listed, PrizeJury

"An enthralling, disconcerting and stunning read, a novel of beauty and violence, of connection and loss. . . . Jones reveals itself to be a unique tour de force, a truly powerful feat of storytelling." —Toronto Star

"In Neil Smith’s novel Jones, every sentence is alive. Funny, dark, clever and surprising, Jones is a sibling love story at once heart-wrenching and hilarious, devastating and brilliant. . . . Smith, like [Miriam] Toews, walks that striking line between sadness and humour, with an edge of wickedness to match the Jones house of horrors that never ceases to delight. . . . Hilarious. . . . There is a fierce intellect at play, and with such heart. This novel is why we read literary fiction." —Winnipeg Free Press

"Jones is a splendid, rollicking and steadily heartbreaking autobiographical work of fiction where all kinds of funny—sarcastic retorts, snarky nicknames, brutal jokes, Heathers-worthy put-downs, deadpan one-liners—come fast and furious. . . . Jones captivates with stylish, effortless writing. Smith’s oddball characters are intriguing and memorably quirky; at a glance, they bring to mind David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs and Tom Perrotta." —Quill & Quire, starred review