There Are Flowers in Ohio Audiobook By Rumaan Alam cover art

There Are Flowers in Ohio

A Short Story

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There Are Flowers in Ohio

By: Rumaan Alam
Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Allison Hiroto, Suzanne Toren
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From the New York Times best-selling author of Leave the World Behind comes an evocative short story about love, self-perception, and a family in transition.

Alice Comstock has always been a dutiful wife and an attentive mother, a perfectionist presiding over a flawless home. She’s reliably been her family’s center, the caretaker and problem-solver, until an illness requires her children to assume responsibility for their mother. For Adam, Alice’s youngest, a return home to California sparks a memory of his younger self. Alternating between the present and flashbacks to Adam’s college years, "There Are Flowers in Ohio" explores how the paths not taken shape all of our lives.

©2022 Rumaan Alam (P)2022 Audible Originals, LLC. Literature & Fiction South Asian Creators Heartfelt Short Stories

About the Creator

Rumaan Alam is the author of the novels Rich and Pretty, That Kind of Mother, and Leave the World Behind. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Bookforum, and The New Republic. He studied writing at Oberlin College and lives in New York with his family.

Michael Crouch
Allison Hiroto
Suzanne Toren

About the Performer

Michael Crouch is a New York City-based actor specializing in voiceover. His audiobook narration has earned Audie Awards, multiple Earphones Awards, YALSA and ALSC honors, and Best of the Year listings from Audible, Booklist, Slate, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and AudioFile. He can also be heard on national commercials, cartoons, video games, industrials, and the animé series Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon.

About the Performer

Allison Hiroto is an actor, musician, and voice over artist. Her voice over work ranges from commercials to audiobooks, and she is an AudioFile Earphone Award winner and Audie nominee. As an actor, Allison is a member of La MaMa’s Great Jones Repertory Company, Loco 7 Dance Puppet Theatre, Yara Arts Group, and NYU's First Look Theatre Company. She has performed all over the world including London, Taipei, Toronto, Bogota, Zagreb, and the Venice Biennale. Allison is also a grant recipient of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Creative Engagement award.

About the Performer

Suzanne Toren has appeared on and off Broadway, and in regional theatres throughout the country, in works by well-known playwrights (from Shakespeare and Moliere to Arthur Miller and Neil Simon), as well as new ones.
Broadway: Goodbye, Fidel (starring Jane Alexander). Regional: Paper Mill Playhouse ( Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities), Philadelphia Drama Guild ( A View from the Bridge), Pennsylvania Stage Company ( Brighton Beach Memoirs), Syracuse Stage ( The Seagull). Off-Broadway: Westside Arts ( A Shayna Maidel, From Door to Door),Castillo Theatre ( Yiddish Death of a Salesman); Stock: Fiddler on the Roof ; TV: Law and Order.
Most recently, she was seen in NY in Fast Food Voices, a site- specific production, where she played 3 roles: a lonely elderly New Yorker, a neurotic Southern belle, and a disgruntled Hispanic housemaid.
In addition, she is a multi-award-winning narrator (including, several times, "Narrator of the Year") of around 1000 audio books, for all major publishers. She was honored with a "Golden Voice" award from Audiofile Magazine, for "career achievements and invaluable contributions to the world of audiobooks."

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I enjoyed this short story. It was perfect listening for some gardening, easy to follow and able to gain character perspective quickly. Would recommend to anyone looking for something quick and easy to follow.

Nice quick listen

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I wish this was a longer story. i wanted to know if uncle bryan was actually bryan 😕

i wanted more 😭

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Reading some of the other reviews about this short story was kind of shocked at first. It's been weeks since I first heard 'There Are Flowers in Ohio' and I am still thinking about it. I've never been so affected by a story filled with so many characters I absolutely despise. I don't know if I will ever understand why we, as humans, treat each other the way that we do? I needed to hear this story. I loved this story. It's not for everyone.. no story is. It was definitely for me.

This story... wow

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The first thing that stands out is how skillfully the author weaves the present and past of the story in order to tell a forbidden love story time has forgotten. Each word is perfectly placed to define the decades passing by, the development of the characters, and the large scale of emotions experienced.

Narration is very good too

Bittersweet look back to another time

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I can't argue that Alam isn't a good writer because he absolutely is, but his descriptions feel a bit too wordy for my personal taste and this one felt like it ended too suddenly. I know its just a short story, but it feels like it could've used just a bit more. still hits a bit in the heart, though.

not bad

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