A Trip Through the Doll Fields

By: Elizabeth Fanning

Narrated by: Skye Alley

Length: 6 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

One human baby. Several plastic dolls. Three overlapping stories. Many lives changed.

A Trip Through the Doll Fields serves up with a bit of the flavor of Tom Robbins’s vision, piqued with a pinch of Neil Gaiman’s whimsy, with a dash of Hunter S. Thompson’s recklessness for adventure—but with less drugs. The story is a celebration of good intentions, poor judgment, inevitable life challenges, and out-of-the-box coping strategies in a world where conventional solutions prove irrelevant.

When a young couple, Allison and Nigel, break house arrest to visit a nudist colony, their lives become intertwined with a visionary lawn ornament artist and a pair of women, Annalise and Lakshmi, who compulsively steal Baby Jesuses from church nativities. While on their road trip, Nigel loses their baby daughter in a novelty shop and deserts Allison, who finds herself lost in a strange town and deep in a mushroom trip. At the same time, after keeping one step ahead of a copycat Baby Jesus abductor and the law, Annalise and Lakshmi's own fun comes to an end after Annalise finds out she has a serious illness. The disarray created by the characters’ life-changing events summons forth a shared waking dream that connects the lost baby, a nudist colony, a lawn ornament artist, inexplicable roadside attractions, cancer treatments, and a car loaded down with piles of plastic Baby Jesuses.

In a quirky universe in which characters both search for and avoid meaning when little makes sense, A Trip Through the Doll Fields will enchant you with a poignant world of magical realism as experienced through the hearts and eyes of complex, vulnerable characters who stumble through, navigate, and ultimately survive poor choices, broken relationships, cancer treatments, loss, and survivor guilt.

©2021 Elizabeth Fanning (P)2021 Elizabeth Fanning

A trip through the doll fields

This was a really good,weird book!A woman and her friend are collecting baby Jesus' from all the creches they can.What they do with them is unbelievable! As it turns out,collecting like this is a family thing...as is cancer.Skye Alley was a very good narrator.I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.'

Magical Realism

This is one of those rare gems that must be listened to carefully to fully understand what is going on because if you don’t, you will miss a highly entertaining yet thought-provoking, and at times soul-wrenching book. The author, Elizabeth Fanning has focused on several characters that intertwine by the end of the book in mysterious ways. One couple visits a nudist colony after escaping house arrest. Their story becomes woven with a couple of Baby Jesuses thieves. Yes, you read that correctly – they steal Baby Jesuses from nativity scenes at churches. Annalise and Lakshmi are responsible and while it’s all fun and games, it becomes real when Annalise realizes and accepts her deadly illness.

Fanning creates characters that are unique yet poignant. Each character, while not conventional, encounters real-life situations that make the listener wonder what they would do in those same circumstances. With each passing minute, I learned more and more about each character.

The narrator, Skye Alley does a first-rate performance. She masterfully gives each character a unique voice and moves the story at a steady pace. Her voice was smooth and clear.

This is one book that will leave the listener pondering long after the end of the program. It explores a range of human emotions, experiences, and choices – the good, bad, and questionable but all magical in a way.

There were no issues with the quality or production of this audiobook. It was crisp and clear with no flaws.

Disclaimer: This Audiobook was provided free of charge by the author, narrator, and/or publisher in exchange for a non-bias, honest review.