Mary and O'Neil

By: Justin Cronin

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

Mary and O'Neil frequently marveled at how, of all the lives they might have led, they had somehow found this one together. When they met at the Philadelphia high school where they'd come to teach, each had suffered a profound loss that had not healed. How likely was it that they could learn to trust, much less love, again?

Justin Cronin's poignant debut traces the lives of Mary Olson and O'Neil Burke, two vulnerable young teachers who rediscover in each other a world alive with promise and hope. From the formative experiences of their early adulthood to marriage, parenthood, and beyond, this novel in stories illuminates the moments of grace that enable Mary and O'Neil to make peace with the deep emotional legacies that haunt them: the sudden, mysterious death of O'Neil’s parents, Mary’s long-ago decision to end a pregnancy, O'Neil’s sister's battle with illness and a troubled marriage. Alive with magical nuance and unexpected encounters, Mary and O'Neil celebrates the uncommon in common lives, and the redemptive power of love.

Critic reviews

“An astonishingly good first novel . . . fully engaging from the first paragraph. What a gift: to be able to live alongside these people for a while.”—Ann Patchett, Chicago Tribune

“A literary love story . . . about the fragility of good fortune and the accidental ways of finding happiness.”—USA Today

“Justin Cronin must have been a novelist in an earlier life. What else could account for the mature insight and the beautifully controlled technique we find in his debut novel? . . . Cronin succeeds, touchingly and tenderly, in portraying life itself as a triumph of hope over experience.”—The Boston Globe

“Justin Cronin’s Mary and O’Neil is that rare thing: a wholly engrossing story of the ordinary life.”—Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls’ Rising

GREAT

I loved it. this is my new favorite author. this is the fifth book I have listened to in less than a month. I can't get enough of him.

Fantastic

I have read all five books Justin Cronin has published on Amazon audible. He is a great new author. His words paint incredible insight into his characters lives. It's like being part of their lives. I feel the pain or joy of his characters. I want more. Thank you Mr. Cronin for bring me into your characters lives.

Such Beautiful Pictures

Such beautiful pictures of life and death and what remains at the end of both.

great book

I listened to this book after the passage series, and was surprised that I liked it nearly as much as that series.

Just could get into it

Finished it but, just couldn’t get into the story... or care about the characters... dreary..