The Loved One

By: Evelyn Waugh

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

"A work of art as rich and subtle and unnerving as anything its author has ever done" (New Yorker), The Loved One is Evelyn Waugh's cutting satire of 1940s California and the Anglo-American cultural divide.

Following the death of a friend, the poet and pets' mortician Dennis Barlow finds himself entering the artificial Hollywood paradise of the Whispering Glades Memorial Park. Within its golden gates, death, American-style, is wrapped up and sold like a package holiday--and Dennis gets drawn into a bizarre love triangle with Aimée Thanatogenos, a naïve Californian corpse beautician, and Mr. Joyboy, a master of the embalmer's art. Waugh's dark and savage satire depicts a world where reputation, love, and death cost a very great deal.

Critic reviews

"Fiendishly entertaining."—New York Times

"As a piece of writing it is nearly faultless; as satire it is an act of devastation."—John Woodburn, The New Republic

"You'd better buy The Loved One, because I can't imagine a purchase apt to corrupt and delight you more...Never before that I can remember has a talent of such austere and classic design been applie to such monstrous vulgarities; never before have the majestic themes of love and death been so delicately perverted to absurdity....It is certainly a work of art, as rich and subtle and unnerving as anything its author has ever done."—Wolcott Gibbs, The New Yorker

"Although the locale of The Loved One is Hollywood, it is not filmdom that Mr. Waugh takes in hand, but the American ethos....He finds a touchstone for the mass-mind of America, for the compulsion to 'package' everything, even love and death....Mr. Waugh's treatment of his macabre material is uninhibited, and wickedly funny...as sadistic, playful, and decisive as a cat's paw on a mouse."—Alice S. Morris, New York Times Book Review

A perfect book

This captures LA and America so beautifully and is a delight. One should have a touch of cynicism for full flavor! A masterpiece.

Disappointed

My instinct is to buy stuff written by Waugh, especially when it’s on sale on Audible.

The language is crisp and creative, as always. The observations are astute, especially as to a Britisher’s early mid-century views of Hollywood. And the weaving in of the operations of cemeteries and funeral operations are very insightful and satirical, funny, and biting.

The problem for me was that the story was uninteresting. I could go into it more but won’t. It’s probably a personal matter, and you may very well see it differently.

For me, the story was set up very well but then fell off the table.

If you listen, I hope it will be better for you.

Hilarious funny.

Modern satire at its finest. Evelyn Waugh skewers post war Hollywood. A return to his early form in Vile Bodies.

Dripping Satire

This is Waugh at his finest. I hope all of us Americans can benefit from the view from outside in.

Genius use of dialog.

Quick and ironically satisfying. The narration was stellar. Complex yet lazer sharp. Moves fast, this author always leaves me wanting more.