Sister Carrie

Written by Theodore Dreiser

Narrated by Laurel Lefkow

A magnificent portrayal of 1890's America and the harsh realities of a dog-eat-dog world, Sister Carrie lies at the forefront of American Naturalism. When poor young provincial woman Carrie Meeber arrives in Chicago, she little expects to be catapulted from lower-class woman to prominent Broadway actress. Passive and yielding, she lets circumstances coerce her into action and by good fortune she arrives at fame.

It is in Chicago that Carrie meets a successful businessman, Hurstwood, who helps her establish her name. Gripped by a strong attraction to Carrie, Hurstwood ends his marriage and moves with her to New York. Their relationship soon ends and, like a fish out of water, Hurstwood finds himself vagrant and destitute on the streets of an unfamiliar city, a poignant counterpoint to Carrie’s rapid rise. Frank, evocative and compelling, Sister Carrie gives us a version of the American dream with a gritty and unattractive reality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
• Release date: May 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781781981290

Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) was an American novelist and journalist. Born in Indiana, Dreiser was the son of John Paul Dreiser, a German immigrant, and Sarah Maria Schanab, a Mennonite from Ohio who converted to Catholicism and was banished by her community. Raised in a family of thirteen children, of which he was the twelfth, Dreiser attended Indiana University for a year before taking a job as a journalist for the Chicago Globe. While working for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Dreiser wrote articles on Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Dean Howells, as well as interviewed such figures as Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison. In 1900, he published his debut novel Sister Carrie, a naturalist portrait of a young midwestern woman who travels to Chicago to become an actress. Despite poor reviews, he continued writing fiction, but failed to find real success until An American Tragedy (1925), a novel based on the 1906 murder of Grace Brown. Considered a masterpiece of American fiction, the novel grew his reputation immensely, leading to his nomination for the 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature, which ultimately went to fellow American Sinclair Lewis. Committed to socialism and atheism throughout his life, Dreiser was a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America and a lifelong champion of the working class.

Reviews for Sister Carrie

[kiyo1227 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am a non-native speaker of English learning American literature. This is the best narration I have ever listened to.

[william9kirkland · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Stunning reader. A great excursion into 1890s Chicago and New York in this scandalous - for 1900– novel.