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    A Shout in the Ruins: A Novel
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    A Shout in the Ruins: A Novel
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    A Shout in the Ruins: A Novel
    Audiobook7 hours

    A Shout in the Ruins: A Novel

    Written by Kevin Powers

    Narrated by Robert Petkoff

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Set in Virginia during the Civil War and a century beyond, this novel by the award-winning author of The Yellow Birds explores the brutal legacy of violence and exploitation in American society.

    Spanning over one hundred years, from the antebellum era to the 1980's, A Shout in the Ruins examines the fates of the inhabitants of Beauvais Plantation outside of Richmond, Virginia. When war arrives, the master of Beauvais, Anthony Levallios, foresees that dominion in a new America will be measured not in acres of tobacco under cultivation by his slaves, but in industry and capital. A grievously wounded Confederate veteran loses his grip on a world he no longer understands, and his daughter finds herself married to Levallois, an arrangement that feels little better than imprisonment. And two people enslaved at Beauvais plantation, Nurse and Rawls, overcome impossible odds to be together, only to find that the promise of coming freedom may not be something they will live to see.

    Seamlessly interwoven is the story of George Seldom, a man orphaned by the storm of the Civil War, looking back from the 1950s on the void where his childhood ought to have been. Watching the government destroy his neighborhood to build a stretch of interstate highway through Richmond, he travels south in an attempt to recover his true origins. With the help of a young woman named Lottie, he goes in search of the place he once called home, all the while reckoning with the more than 90 years he lived as witness to so much that changed during the 20th century, and so much that didn't. As we then watch Lottie grapple with life's disappointments and joys in the 1980's, now in her own middle-age, the questions remain: How do we live in a world built on the suffering of others? And can love exist in a place where for 400 years violence has been the strongest form of intimacy?

    Written with the same emotional intensity, harrowing realism, and poetic precision that made The Yellow Birds one of the most celebrated novels of the past decade, A Shout in the Ruins cements Powers' place in the forefront of American letters and demands that we reckon with the moral weight of our troubling history.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateMay 15, 2018
    ISBN9781478975359
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for A Shout in the Ruins

    3.5/5

    28 ratings3 reviews

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    • 2/5
      I made it to the 41% point of the book and gave up. There were too many characters and too much shifting among time periods. I also didn't enjoy the writing style. About an injured soldier: "He saw where he had been before his birth. The darkness there, too. A void broken only by spirals of color. A vastness so great as to be meaningless." About a slave "...she was taught a language beyond speech, one that existed when the ground on which all her torments occurred had been submerged below a channel sea, with a vocabulary that remained unchanged even with the unending forces of thrust and rift at work." What the hell does this mean? I'm sure this book will work for some people, but not for me.I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
    • 4/5
      I thought I had read Kevin Powers first book but now realize I wanted to and never did. I am glad that I read this book. Many of the critics of this book take issue with Powers narrative being very dense and hard to decipher. The prose was excellent and very complex. I can see where it could put off some readers but if you take the time you will see the beauty in his use of language. As to the story, I thought weaving the civil war time with 1956 and 1984 worked well. Powers showed the continuing impact of the Civil War into our time. As to the Civil War story, it was creative and engaged me. The fact there have been many good novels about the Civil War should not diminish the value of Power's effort. The book did a good job of evoking emotions and feelings. I will definitely read Power's first book. This book is 250 pages so your investment will not be large, but to me this is a worthwhile read and another depiction of the singular important event of our country. The impact of slavery, and the destruction of the Indian population never should be dismissed. As current events show, they continue to stay with us.
    • 4/5
      3.5 The lingering effects of the civil War isexp!ored in this novel, using multiple threads. The latter takes place nearly a hundred years after wars end, and this thread follows the quest of a very old black man named George. A man who doesn't know who he came from but does loosely remembers where. He was only three when he was taken for safety, and given to someone else to raise. As hejournsys back through time, we also follow the story of Emily,her father John, two blacks who try to do anything and everything to stay together, and lastly Levellois, a man who will use any means necessary to gain what he wants.These stories are not told consequentially, but are skipped back and forth, making it hard for me to follow. It wasn't u til I finished that I could put the whole story together in my head, while reading I often felt like I had come in half way through a movie. The prose is lush, sometimes n my opinion, too much so. At it's heart it has important things to say, the deleterious effects of war, the light and effects of slavery and the many who lost life, limb and property, and the unscrupulous who will take advantage of those unable to fight back. Iliked this but did not find it easy to read. My favorite thread was that of George, and the people he meets trying to diciver from where he came. The author does to a fine job combining the threads showing how these people are connected to each other,but it was not easy getting there. Did like how the ending connected so wonderfully to the beginning.ARC from Goodreads.