Raymond and Hannah

A Love Story

By: Stephen Marche

Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney, David LeDoux

This boldly contemporary love story combines sex and seriousness, physical lust and spiritual longing. Raymond and Hannah hook up at a party; a one-night stand expands into a weeklong passionate and surprisingly deep love affair. Then Hannah leaves for a year in Jerusalem. With six thousand miles separating their bodies, the energy of love and lust must be sublimated to the written word. While Hannah immerses herself in Torah and the Orthodox world of Jerusalem, Raymond remains in multicultural Toronto, working on his dissertation on Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy.

Over the school year, Hannah's growing love for her Jewishness is more and more at odds with her love for a blond, blue-eyed WASP. And Raymond, pining in Toronto, seems to be living out his dissertation before he's even written it. Can this new love affair survive distance, cultural dissonance, and out-of-sync, late-night e-mails?In this remarkable debut, carnal love confronts religion and culture, and modern passion finds its counterpoint in ancient texts.

©2004 Stephen Marche (P)2004 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

• 2005 Audie Award Winner, Multi-Voiced Performance

"An original and moving love story for our frazzled, high-tech, long-distance era." (Emma Donoghue)

Good story but...

After a while I got so wrapped up in the "Jewishness" as she repeatedly put it, I totally forgot about the love story.

The Contemporary Culture

This book offers an excellent observation at today's broad perceptions on love, sex and romance. Filled with traveling adventures, relationship escapades and carnal lust, the book dives deeply into the 21st century youthful paradigmatic orientation in terms of identity, intellectualism, and religion.

Good love story not romantic story

I enjoyed the book tremendously. Worth the listen! It's about love, lust and everything else a real romance is.