The Repeat Room

A Novel

By: Jesse Ball

Narrated by: Erik Bloomquist

Franz Kafka meets Yorgos Lanthimos in this provocative new novel from one of America's most brilliant and distinctive writers

In a speculative future, Abel, a menial worker, is called to serve in a secretive and fabled jury system. At the heart of this system is the repeat room, where a single juror, selected from hundreds of candidates, is able to inhabit the defendant's lived experience, to see as if through their eyes.

The case to which Abel is assigned is revealed in the novel's shocking second act. We receive a record of a boy's broken and constrained life, a tale that reveals an illicit and passionate psycho-sexual relationship, its end as tragic as the circumstances of its conception.

Artful in its suspense, and sharp in its evocation of a byzantine and cruel bureaucracy, The Repeat Room is an exciting and pointed critique of the nature of knowledge and judgment, and a vivid framing of Ball's absurd and nihilistic philosophy of love.

©2024 Jesse Ball (P)2024 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

PoMo Isn’t for the Weak :)

This is postmodernism with a straight face and a quiet grin. The room repeats, the language loops, time stutters, and meaning refuses to sit still long enough to be politely summarized. If you are waiting for narrative closure, emotional catharsis, or a helpful moral, you are very much in the wrong room. That is not a bug; it is the architecture.

Strange, unsettling, powerful

Spare. Essential. Raw. Provocative. And deeply disturbing. Will likely have strange dreams tonight, Worth your time!

kept me engaged

this book makes you read/listen with intent. if you get distracted you will miss something crucial to the storyline. I enjoyed it very much.
if you are one to think inside of a small box then this is not the book for you. in my line of work I know part of the story can be true and happens.

Guilt

Is he guilty or not guilty? That was an honest death.
A suicide not murder. A great book for a book club.

A good prompt buried and fluff and shock value

The concept seems interesting at first but narratively goes no where, ends with a cop out , teasing the listener about the unknown and then surprising surprise it remains unknown. It’s set up like an info dump except you end with minimal info anyway. Then the entire story within the story is at the end and is so completely unrelated and deeply upsetting. It feels like the author came up with 2 interesting writing prompts and just stuck them one after anther to try and make it long enough to be a story.