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    Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?: A Novel
    Audiobook5 hours

    Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?: A Novel

    Written by Dave Eggers

    Narrated by MacLeod Andrews

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From Dave Eggers, best-selling author of The Circle, a tightly controlled, emotionally searching novel. Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? is the formally daring, brilliantly executed story of one man struggling to make sense of his country, seeking answers the only way he knows how.

    In a barracks on an abandoned military base, miles from the nearest road, Thomas watches as the man he has brought wakes up. Kev, a NASA astronaut, doesn't recognize his captor, though Thomas remembers him. Kev cries for help. He pulls at his chain. But the ocean is close by, and nobody can hear him over the waves and wind. Thomas apologizes. He didn't want to have to resort to this. But they really needed to have a conversation, and Kev didn't answer his messages. And now, if Kev can just stop yelling, Thomas has a few questions.

    Read by MacLeod Andrews with Mark Deakins, Michelle Gonzalez, John H. Mayer, Kate McGregor-Stewart, Rebecca Lowman, Bruce Turk, and Marc Cashman.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 17, 2014
    ISBN9780553551228
    Unavailable
    Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?: A Novel
    Author

    Dave Eggers

    Dave Eggers is the founder of McSweeney’s, a quarterly journal and website (www.mcsweeneys.net), and his books include You Shall Know Our Velocity, How We Are Hungry, Short Short Stories, What is the What, and the bestselling A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. His work has appeared in the New Yorker and Ocean Navigator. He is the recipient of the Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was a 2001 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Northern California.

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    Reviews for Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

    3.5/5

    152 ratings16 reviews

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    • 5/5
      great writing when the author can make you empathize with a kidnapper - a sign of the times for sure when the world is such a mess and so many with no sense of purpose or community...
    • 4/5
      This was a wonderful read. I actually feel weird though, because I found myself relating to the protagonist a bit too much, but not on the kidnapping part. I found myself relating to the confusion and what to do, but I don't feel it like he does. Anyway, great book.
    • 4/5
      I would say this book is great, but I feel like I can't. Since the book is written entirely in dialogue, every page is playing devil's advocate for one side or another. The plot itself is well-made, and the book is well-written, but any larger societal point (which it almost seems like Dave is trying to make) isn't clearly put across. Based on his last few books, it makes me wonder if anyone told Dave that he needs to back off the criticism a bit.
    • 4/5
      Great writing as always by Eggers! Read this in one sitting.
    • 4/5
      This book had some good points, but it was not one of my favorites. It doesn't really resolve well, and the characters are awfully flat. The structure of the story is interesting, all in dialogue between the MC and the various people he's kidnapped. I liked the dialogue about why cops shoot people with knives, and why this is problematic.
    • 5/5
      i have a category for "worlds i did not want to leave," by which I mean I loved being there, in the place the author created. In this case, though, I mean, I couldn't wait to leave and i didn't want to leave all at once. Thomas brings a hostage to an abandoned military base: he has questions; he's trying to understand why life sucks. You could call it a page turner or talk about the incredibly skillfull handling of rising tension, nail-biting suspense, but that's not the magic. Told entirely in dialogue, yet Eggers creates characters and places so vivid you will never forget them.
    • 5/5
      Shades. Of. Grey. Everything is shades of grey. Impressive - twists you through so many bias' and assumptions - mental health, policing, murder, cover up, politics; really enjoyed it. Plus first book I have ever read where everything - EVERYTHING - is dialogue. Different and gripping. I did not want to put this down.
    • 3/5
      Dave Eggers is an excellent author and I recommend his books. However if you have not read him then I would not start with this one. It is written entirely in dialogue and probably works best as an audio book. Being an Eggers fan I was open to the book. The premise of a troubled young man(30 ish) named Thomas who kidnaps people and takes them to Fort Ord which is a closed military base. He takes them one at a time and they are kept separately. He is seeking answers from each of his victims(which includes his mother). The structure is clever and creative but it spreads itself too thin. It is short so you are not investing a lot of time and energy. It is almost as if Eggers had a creative burst and with his reputation and publishing resources was able to put this book out.
    • 5/5
      Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times called this book a creative writing exercise pretending to be a novel. Just goes to show that even Kakutani cannot get it right every time. This book is absurd but in that area that has you glancing around, asking, "Is it me..." People, like Michiko Kakutani who are constitutionally unable to ask Is It Me? will not like this book. All that said. The audiobook is a homerun. More acting talent than an episode of the The Wire.
    • 3/5
      A unique read that consists entirely of dialogue between the main character, a troubled 34 year old man named Thomas, and the people who he kidnaps in a fruitless search to find some meaning and purpose to living. Thankfully the book isn't too long since the concept began to get a bit tedious for my taste. In spite of that, there was something slightly touching about Thomas. I found myself wishing things would work out better for him and dreading his obvious destiny. Eggers can write, that is clear. Each of the his titles that I have read previously were completely different, and yet they were very good. This particular title didn't work quite as well for me, but I'm guessing it will appeal to specific readers. For some reason, I found myself thinking about the book "Catch-22" while I was reading. Unlike that title, I was able to finish Egger's perhaps due to its compact size and more modern setting. I think fans of Heller's "Catch-22" might love this book also.
    • 4/5
      This is one of those novels it is hard to review in conventional style without spoiling the fun for those who have not yet read it. That said, I will do my best to confine myself to what is revealed in the book's own dust jacket. Please note, too, that the entire novel (all 212 pages of it) is written in conversational format. It is so consistently a series of conversations, in fact, that the author did not find it necessary to use a single set of quotation marks in the entire book. "Your Fathers, Where Are They?" begins in the manner that readers expect modern thrillers to begin: a confused kidnapping victim regains consciousness and finds himself face-to-face with the young man who chloroformed him into helplessness. This, however, is no run-of-the-mill kidnapping victim. Kev is an astronaut still active in the NASA program, someone who will be missed and diligently searched for almost as soon as he is taken. Although Kev does not recognize his captor, that man (Thomas) considers Kev to be a friend of more than fifteen years, and he has taken Kev only because the astronaut refused to answer his emailed questions. Thomas really, really wants the answers to some questions that he believes only Kev can provide.So let the questioning begin...but be prepared to be surprised by what happens next.
    • 5/5
      The audio version of this was a terrific way to "read" this book. I'm not sure if I would have been able to read it because it is all dialogue but the audio was just perfect---very current in presenting the problems of our times.
    • 2/5
      Eggers seems to want to solve all, or most, of the ills of modern society with this short novel consisting entirely of dialogue and little in the way of plot, setting or action. The novel suffers from too much ambition and little follow through on the issues raised. Thomas is a young man who is disaffected but does not have clear ideas about why that might be. He seeks enlightenment by kidnapping various people and imprisoning them in a defunct army installation. Thomas seems naive and spoiled--too quick to blame others for his own failings. He has taken little initiative to achieve anything in his life or address the problems with society he perceives, while the people he captures have had substantial successes in their lives. Thomas sets out to learn by interrogating his captives about issues but ends up arguing with them and demonstrating that his mind is made up about most things or that he is too easily manipulated; he really does not want to hear what they have to say. Thomas wants to achieve something but is ill equipped to define what that might be and thus wants someone else to articulate it for him. He seems to think that if someone would set some goals for him, he would then be able readily to achieve them. He does not seem to recognize that his captives have been able to articulate their own goals and have achieved them through hard work. With Thomas, Eggers seems to be saying that a central problem for many in our society is a failure to articulate goals and a specious expectation that if this were done, it would somehow lead to success requiring little effort.
    • 4/5
      I’m not sure the claim of formal daring here is warranted. Rather the novel feels like an application of one of the oldest surviving forms of art to a modern setting, concealed by form. It seems like a transposition of Greek drama to the format of the novel; a man who’s reached a crisis point confronting the gods of his life; the astronaut symbolising heroism and hope; the Vietnam vet congressman; teacher; mother; cop; administrator and a woman. Each symbolises some aspect of the system of American life the lead character grew up in but can’t quite connect to. As such there’s no real action to the book at all, just a series of conversations that reflect how the country’s changed around the protagonist and how these people and aspects have proven such a disappointment to him. Eggers provides a jigsaw puzzle of what’s driven the narrator to the actions he takes, why he arrives at the position where he needs to have these conversations.As such the protagonist’s simply an avatar for the philosophical questions Eggers is looking to explore here; how we lose faith as we get older and how a generation with no great project to inspire it copes with life. Eggers, creditably, doesn’t look to provide easy answers but seeks to explore the questions and their ramifications. The book’s reluctance to fully answer the questions it poses means it’s perhaps more awkward than Eggers’s previous works, and with the satirical gauze of The Circle removed, a little more disturbing in what it implies. It certainly won’t be to everyone’s tastes but an author of Eggers’s stature trying something different should be applauded and encouraged.
    • 5/5
      Thomas, a young man desperate for answers, kidnaps an old acquaintance, a man who now has a successful career as an astronaut, in an attempt to understand what’s wrong with the world today. The answers he receives only create more questions and set off a cycle of more kidnappings.Don’t be mislead by the title, this is not a story about religion, although there is a little political ranting. And don’t be put off by the format either. The book is written entirely in dialog, but it works – partly because it’s a short, entertaining book, and partly because the author does such a wonderful job conveying the characters and surroundings without the use of descriptive narrative. It’s thought-provoking, witty and brilliantly constructed; to say more about the plot would ruin the suspense of discovery as the layers of the story unfold.Audio production:Read by an ensemble cast: MacLeod Andrews with Mark Deakins, Michelle Gonzalez, John H. Mayer, Kate McGregor-Stewart, Rebecca Lowman, Bruce Turk, and Marc Cashman. The audio production was fantastic. One of my favorites this year. I was so engaged in the dialog that I listened for the entire five-plus hours without stopping. It was performed like a play with each narrator taking on a different character with a distinct voice and range of emotions. The audio version is highly recommended to all listeners.
    • 5/5
      Eggers have more variety in his writing than most authors. A book all done in dialogue, sounds like reading a play. Without the emotional narrative it can be stilting, but Eggers makes the dialogue compelling as he tells the story of a mentally unbalanced man who kidnaps first an astronaut, then a retired US senator and a cop. The kidnapper’s unbalanced, but his words sort of make sense in a creepy sort of way. Although this book wasn’t my cup of tea, I’m giving it 5 stars because of Eggers writing. He’s pulled off a story that I’ve never seen done this well.