Village of Islands Audiobook By Jim Shepard cover art

Village of Islands

A Short Story

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From the award-winning author of The Book of Aron and Phase Six comes a powerful short story exploring one of the most devastating storms in American history.

The 1935 Labor Day hurricane annihilated between four hundred and six hundred lives in the middle of the Florida Keys, and like all disasters, both exposed long-standing social and economic inequities and reminded us of the bonds that enable us to provide what rescue we can for those we cherish. In this fictional account of the storm, rooted in the record but brought to life with Shepard’s unparalleled command of interpersonal impact, Village of Islands follows a handful of residents of a small beachside town in the moments leading up to, during and after this life-altering event.

©2021 Jim Shepard (P)2021 Audible Originals, LLC. Historical Fiction Fiction Tearjerking Inspiring Short Stories

About the Creator

Jim Shepard has written eight novels, including The Book of Aron, which won the Sophie Brody Medal for Excellence in Jewish Literature, the Ribalow Prize for Jewish Literature, the PEN/New England Award for Fiction, and the Clark Fiction Prize, and most recently Phase Six, published in May 2021, as well as five story collections, including Like You’d Understand, Anyway, a finalist for the National Book Award and Story Prize winner, and most recently The World to Come. He’s also won the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Library of Congress/Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction, the ALEX Award from the American Library Association, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He’s written a book on movies and politics, The Tunnel at the End of the Light, and edited another, Writers at the Movies. The film And Then I Go, from his screenplay based on his novel Project X, was released in 2017, and The World to Come, based on his short story of the same title, in 2021. He lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with his wife and three beagles, and teaches at Williams College

About the Performer

Stephen Graybill is an award-winning American voice actor. Most recently he earned the Audie Award in History/Biography for his solo narration of Douglas Brinkley's American Moonshot, a historical retelling of John F. Kennedy's quest to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. Outside of narration, Graybill is a professional actor, performing onstage, for television and in films—most notably in HBO's Big Little Lies, NBC's Law & Order: SVU, Lifetime’s The Art of Murder, and Game Shakers on Nickelodeon—in addition to appearing in and voicing numerous award-winning television commercials.

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Wow!!! what a masterful and emotional experience this audio book is! I would love to hear more from this audio story.

Village of islands

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Overall a very interesting and detailed narrative of what happened during the Labor Day hurricane in 1935. It was a category five with winds over 200 miles an hour. It devastated the keys. By creating characters we could identify with it draws us into the story with more emotion

A short poignant story about a devastating storm

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Everyone should know about this hurricane during the Depression that swept away HUNDREDS of WW II veterans and a whole town in Florida’s Keys. It may have been the most fierce one to hit the mainland.

Heartbreaking. Horrific. Important.

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Chilling tale of survival based on one of the strongest storms in Florida history. The dry, matter of fact delivery of the story left room for my imagination and memory of hurricanes- how the storm feels and how it makes me feel- to bring the harrowing details to life. Hurricanes- even relatively weak ones- remind me of the raw power and indifference of Nature.

Powerful lessons to be learned- never forget that tools all have limitations. Trust real evidence and be mindful of technology gaps. Overconfidence in limited tools led to tragic and avoidable loss of life.

I know a few of the locations in the story and will likely do a little digging to see what facts of the event exist. This was a good short listen.

chilling tale- worth a listen

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The narrator reminds me of 1950 documentary voices. The story of this hurricane can be found in many places, this short story is a small Kodak moment of a few people’s lives and losses. It’s an appetizer for us to seek out more and learn more. Short stories are not meant to be full documentaries. It’s remarkable the intensity our hurricanes used to have and how grateful we should all be that the study of hurricanes and weather in general has matured and ultimately saved probably a million lives by now.

Period piece

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