O Beautiful: A Novel
Written by Jung Yun
Narrated by Catherine Ho
4/5
()
About this audiobook
From the critically-acclaimed author of Shelter, an unflinching portrayal of a woman trying to come to terms with the ghosts of her past and the tortured realities of a deeply divided America.
Elinor Hanson, a forty-something former model, is struggling to reinvent herself as a freelance writer when she receives an unexpected assignment. Her mentor from grad school offers her a chance to write for a prestigious magazine about the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota. Elinor grew up near the Bakken, raised by an overbearing father and a distant Korean mother who met and married when he was stationed overseas. After decades away from home, Elinor returns to a landscape she hardly recognizes, overrun by tens of thousands of newcomers.
Surrounded by roughnecks seeking their fortunes in oil and long-time residents worried about their changing community, Elinor experiences a profound sense of alienation and grief. She rages at the unrelenting male gaze, the locals who still see her as a foreigner, and the memories of her family’s estrangement after her mother decided to escape her unhappy marriage, leaving Elinor and her sister behind. The longer she pursues this potentially career-altering assignment, the more her past intertwines with the story she’s trying to tell, revealing disturbing new realities that will forever change her and the way she looks at the world.
With spare and graceful prose, Jung Yun's O Beautiful presents an immersive portrait of a community rife with tensions and competing interests, and one woman’s attempts to reconcile her anger with her love of a beautiful, but troubled land.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press
Jung Yun
Jung Yun was born in South Korea, grew up in North Dakota, and educated at Vassar College, the University of Pennsylvania, and University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her work has appeared in Tin House (the "Emerging Voices" issue); The Best of Tin House: Stories, edited by Dorothy Allison; and The Massachusetts Review; and she is the recipient of two Artist Fellowships in fiction from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and an honourable mention for the Pushcart Prize. Currently, she lives in Baltimore with her husband and serves as an Assistant Professor of English at the George Washington University. Shelter is her debut novel.
Related to O Beautiful
Related audiobooks
Little Gods: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four Treasures of the Sky: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shelter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Do Not Say We Have Nothing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unpassing: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Tenth Muse: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ponti Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Evening Hero Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edge Case: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Leavers: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Goose: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5House of Sticks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wildcat: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFault Lines: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Run Me to Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Color of Air: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Before You Go: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5St. Ivo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beasts of a Little Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daughters of the New Year: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Circa: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harmless Like You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chevy in the Hole: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5White Ivy: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Saltwater: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sadness Is a White Bird: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fortunes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Abundance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fight Night Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Asymmetry: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Fiction For You
Remarkably Bright Creatures: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: A Hunger Games Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tom Lake: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Alchemist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stardust Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Parable of the Sower Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yellowface: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hate U Give Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Picture of Dorian Gray: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Poisonwood Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Measure: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Overstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Song of Achilles: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Name of the Wind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Their Eyes Were Watching God Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dutch House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anxious People: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The House in the Cerulean Sea Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kindred Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of The Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for O Beautiful
14 ratings0 reviews