Guided Tours of Hell

Novellas

By: Francine Prose

Narrated by: Kyle McCarley

The less-than-innocents abroad in these short novels are Americans in Europe, involved in what turn out to be pleasure tours of hell: shocking, bewildering trips that change forever their ideas about history, reality, politics, sex - their entire lives.

In the title novella, a third-rate American playwright named Landau attends a literary conference in Prague, where an organized group excursion to a former concentration camp degenerates into a battle of wills and an exercise in egomania and public humiliation. Nina, the heroine of the second novella, "Three Pigs in Five Days," is sent to Paris to write an article for her lover's travel journal - a dizzying, erotic pilgrimage that forces her to see how sex has distorted her view of the world.

©1997 Francine Prose (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Way too many mispronunciations

If your JOB is TO READ aloud, consult a dictionary or the internet when you come upon a word you don’t regularly use. If your job is TO HIRE the narrator of a book that takes the characters to France, hire someone who took French 1. One butchered word after another—in French AND in English —ruined this book for me.

Prefer Nina to Landau and either to Jiri and Leo

For me, the narrator has the right wry ironic dry tone, but he seems to sympathize more with Nina than Landau. My favorite moment: a Frenchwoman who sounds more like Dr Ruth Westheimer!!