Shell Game

Getaway Collection

By: Rumaan Alam

Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi

2023 Audie Award Winner for Best Short Stories/Collection Audiobook

An extended family’s Cape Cod vacation reveals uncomfortable truths that threaten one man’s illusion of happiness in this incisive short story by the New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind.

Mark has a wife and two kids, a sense of purpose, financial security, and a fragile contentment. However wistful his visions of the future, Mark knows who he is. But a summer trip with his abrasive brother-in-law and unhappy sister-in-law leave Mark questioning everything he thinks he knows about his family—and himself.

Shell Game by Rumaan Alam is part of Getaway, a collection of six stories about dream escapes that take unimaginable, even sinister, turns. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single sitting.

©2022 Rumaan Alam. (P)2022 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Did I miss something?

I feel like this was an epilogue or a something to wet your appetite for a main course. I don’t see how it can be stand along and completed.

maybe I missed the point

To be totally transparent, I was busy doing other things while listening to this one, but I couldn't get into the story. Overall, it sounded like a short recollection of a boring family vacation.

Confusing

There was no conclusion & I couldn’t figure out who was the good guy. Was there a storyline - just confusing.

Not worth the time

This was horrible. No real storyline. Seemed to be about some guy fixated on sex. I wish I had that hour plus of my listening time back.

Jarring and real

I am not sure the point of this novella, other than it’s exceptionally real and raw. The author absolutely captures the human condition in an inevitability jarring way.