The Sheep Queen

By: Tom Savage

Narrated by: George Guidall

Thomas Savage, a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and a PEN/Faulkner Award nominee, has long been a critically acclaimed author. The New Yorker calls him "a writer of the first order". This starkly elegant story details the lives of Emma Russell Sweringen and her family in the early 1900s. Emma’s daughter Beth secretly gave up a baby girl for adoption many years ago. Now, Beth’s secret life is being unraveled as her daughter comes looking for her long-lost family.

©1977 Thomas Savage (P)2005 Recorded Books

I hate it for this story to end

I thought the writing was simply superb. The characters, vividly, drawn the narration perfection! One of my all-time favorites!

Confusing

The story jumped around so much. I would be wondering who are these people and how do they fit. Eventually it all made sense, but I think I would have enjoyed it much more if it had not been set up that way.

Another masterpiece from Thomas Savage

I adored this book. I first encountered Savage in his novel "The Power of the Dog"; I saw the movie when it came out a few years ago and didn't like it at all; too self-consciously artsy for my taste. But my bookclub chose to read the Savage novel on which the movie was based, and I was completely blown away by the beauty of the prose. This book, The Sheep Queen, was, if, anything, even better; the way Savage weaves together the various strands of the narrative into a coherent story is quite extraordinary, and George Guidall's narration is pitch-perfect, with absolutely brilliant pacing and timing. Plus, it's downright hilarious in many places. Simply wonderful. I've done something I've never done before, which is that as soon as I finished listening to this book I went back to the beginning and started over. Great stuff.

It was all perfection.

This book reminded me of why I’ve always loved to read. Brilliant in every way.

Excellent in all respects

I chose this book for the narrator whom I always enjoy listening to. I knew nothing about the story and was very pleasantly surprised by how interesting it was. The sheep queen is the very intelligent and enterprising matriarch of the family living in the mountains of the Northwest. I was sorry when the story reached an end. Maybe I'll listen to it again some day.