Length12h 19m
About this audiobook
"The House of Forster is built on bubbles; watching each wealth-addled generation try not to blow the family fortune and/or disgrace its name provides not only excellent Southern Gothic fun but a panoramic tour of the American Century."— Jonathan Dee, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Privileges
The story of a family.
The story of an empire.
The story of a nation.
Moving from Mississippi to Paris to New York and back again, a saga of family, ambition, passion, and tragedy that brings to life one unforgettable Southern dynasty—the Forsters, founders of the world’s first major soft-drink company—against the backdrop of more than a century of American cultural history.
The child of immigrants, Houghton Forster has always wanted more—from his time as a young boy in Mississippi, working twelve-hour days at his father’s drugstore; to the moment he first laid eyes on his future wife, Annabelle Teague, a true Southern belle of aristocratic lineage; to his invention of the delicious fizzy drink that would transform him from tiller boy into the founder of an empire, the Panola Cola Company, and entice a youthful, enterprising nation entering a hopeful new age.
Now the heads of a preeminent American family spoken about in the same breath as the Hearsts and the Rockefellers, Houghton and Annabelle raise their four children with the expectation they’ll one day become world leaders. The burden of greatness falls early on eldest son Montgomery, a handsome and successful politician who has never recovered from the horrors and heartbreak of the Great War. His younger siblings Ramsey and Lance, known as the “infernal twins,” are rivals not only in wit and beauty, but in their utter carelessness with the lives and hearts of others. Their brother Harold, as gentle and caring as the twins can be cruel, is slowed by a mental disability—and later generations seem equally plagued by misfortune, forcing Houghton to seriously consider who should control the company after he’s gone.
An irresistible tour de force of original storytelling, American Pop blends fact and fiction, the mundane and the mythical, and utilizes techniques of historical reportage to capture how, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s words, “families are always rising and falling in America,” and to explore the many ways in which nostalgia can manipulate cultural memory—and the stories we choose to tell about ourselves.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★ 3.5 (2.1K)
Includes Goodreads, Amazon, StoryGraph, LibraryThing
GenreFantasy, General Fiction, Romance
Length12 hrs 19 mins
Narrated byRobert Petkoff
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateFeb 5, 2019
LanguageEnglish
More from Snowden Wright
Demon CopperheadBarbara Kingsolver21h 3m4.5 (949.4K)$46 · $0.00
Remarkably Bright CreaturesShelby Van Pelt11h 17m4.4 (1.7M)$29 · $0.00
Before the Coffee Gets Cold: A Toshikazu Kawaguchi Book SetToshikazu Kawaguchi18h 55m4.5 (1.4K)$40 · $0.00
The Song of AchillesMadeline Miller11h 15m4.3 (2.3M) · 1017$29 · $0.00
The Left and the LuckyWilly Vlautin6h 40m4.4 (1.1K)$24 · $0.00
Hunt of the DragonJuliette Cross9h 46m4.4 (736)$20
Deadly GameChristine Feehan13h 20m4.3 (15.8K)$30
Lolth's WarriorR. A. Salvatore13h 20m4.6 (2.4K)$33 · $0.00
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du BoisHonoree Fanonne Jeffers29h 49m4.5 (58K)$8 · $0.00
Treasure Island (Adventure Classic with Illustrations)Robert Louis Stevenson8h 50m4.5 (11.2K)$1.99 · $0.00
Lola in the MirrorTrent Dalton13h 40m4.5 (43.9K)$33 · $0.00
Going PostalTerry Pratchett13h 36m4.5 (163.8K)$33 · $0.00
The Leo Tolstoy CollectionLeo Tolstoy9h 1m4.5 (4.9K)$12 · $0.00
Sword and ShadowMichelle Sagara16h 51m4.5 (2.2K)$40 · $0.00
A Tree Grows in BrooklynBetty Smith14h 55m4.4 (577.6K)$33 · $0.00
Dark GuardianChristine Feehan12h 32m4.5 (26.3K)$33 · $0.00
The Neil Gaiman ReaderNeil Gaiman27h 3m4.5 (3.2K)$53 · $0.00
The HobbitJ. R. R. Tolkien10h 51m4.4 (4.9M)$12 · $0.00
Bad HabitAlana S. Portero5h 37m4.4 (52.3K)$24 · $0.00
Science Fiction & Fantasy CollectionH. P. Lovecraft16h 32m4.5 (2.7K)$2 · $0.00
WhistlerAnn Patchett10h 45m4.6 (4.6K)$29 · $0.00
Demon CopperheadBarbara Kingsolver21h 3m4.5 (949.4K)$46 · $0.00
To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee12h 18m4.5 (7.4M)$29 · $0.00
Remarkably Bright CreaturesShelby Van Pelt11h 17m4.4 (1.7M)$29 · $0.00
War LordBernard Cornwell13h 21m4.6 (33.1K)$33 · $0.00
The Great Gatsby: Original 1925 Edition (An F. Scott Fitzgerald Classic NovelFrancis Scott Fitzgerald4h 45m4.6 (9.3K)$18 · $0.00
Something Like LoveBeverly Jenkins10h 21m4.6 (2.7K)$29 · $0.00
Black History CollectionFrederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois27h 9m4.6 (2.6K)$18 · $0.00
The Old Man and the Sea (Annotated)Ernest Hemingway4h 27m4.6 (1.4K)$2 · $0.00
White HotIlona Andrews13h 18m4.5 (136.9K)$5 · $0.00
The Ghost by the Billabong (The Matilda Saga, #5)Jackie French14h 58m4.6 (773)$33 · $0.00
Cast in BloodMichelle Sagara16h 35m4.6 (607)$33 · $0.00
The Captain Blood Trilogy (Annotated)Rafael Sabatini29h 20m4.6 (1K)$3 · $0.00
Ship of the Line (Annotated)Cecil Louis Troughton Smith11h 13m4.6 (1K)$2 · $0.00
The George Orwell CollectionGeorge Orwell24h 46m4.5 (14.4K)$12 · $0.00
ShivajiRanjit Desai25h 13m4.6 (3.1K)$24 · $0.00
Time RegainedMarcel Proust15h 38m4.5 (9.2K)$2 · $0.00
Driving ForceElle James4h 58m4.6 (407)$20 · $0.00
When God Calls the HeartBrian Bird, Michelle Cox3h 24m4.6 (439)$10 · $0.00
Five Little IndiansMichelle Good10h 34m4.5 (64.5K)$29 · $0.00
The Search (Annotated)Grace Livingston Hill7h 29m4.7 (1.1K)$0.99 · $0.00
The ReunionJana Deleon6h 31m4.6 (1.6K)$26 · $0.00
Something Like LoveBeverly Jenkins10h 21m4.6 (2.7K)$29 · $0.00
Wishes from the HeartSophie Mays4h 9m4.7 (344)$15 · $0.00
Blizzard ShowdownShirlee McCoy5h 16m4.6 (1.1K)$12 · $0.00
To Hold and ProtectSandra Owens7h 59m4.6 (1.1K)$8 · $0.00
Arctic WitnessHeather Woodhaven5h 46m4.6 (985)$12 · $0.00
Following the TrailLynette Eason6h 35m4.6 (2.3K)$12 · $0.00
Defending from DangerJodie Bailey5h 46m4.6 (588)$24 · $0.00
White HotIlona Andrews13h 18m4.5 (136.9K)$5 · $0.00
Explosive RevengeMaggie K. Black6h 18m4.6 (545)$12 · $0.00
Her Brand of JusticeB.J. Daniels6h 48m4.6 (1.3K)$12 · $0.00
Search And DetectTerri Reed5h 51m4.6 (706)$24 · $0.00
Driving ForceElle James4h 58m4.6 (407)$20 · $0.00
Danger in the WildernessDarlene L. Turner6h 54m4.7 (299)$12 · $0.00
Yukon JusticeDana Mentink6h 15m4.6 (751)$12 · $0.00
The Rogue WarriorCindy Roland Anderson5h 44m4.6 (410)$17 · $0.00
Her Duty Bound DefenderSharee Stover6h 30m4.6 (1.1K)$24 · $0.00
Trail Of ThreatsJessica R. Patch5h 47m4.6 (425)$24 · $0.00
Ironwood, a Fae Universe SeriesAlessa Thorn26h 57m4.6 (835)$30 · $0.00
You may also like
The Beautiful and DamnedF. Scott Fitzgerald15h 9m3.9 (84.6K)$4.70 · $0.00
The Beautiful AmericanJeanne Mackin11h 45m3.9 (3.7K)$23
New Grub StreetGeorge Gissing21h 4m4.0 (9.2K)$2.30 · $0.00
MoonglowMichael Chabon14h 42m3.9 (37.4K)$33 · $0.00
Women Holding Things & Still Life with RemorseMaira Kalman1h 18m4.2 (477)$16 · $0.00
Baker TowersJennifer Haigh8h 50m3.9 (6.3K)$29 · $0.00
Angle of ReposeWallace Stegner22h 10m4.3 (75.8K)$32
MarianelaBenito Pérez Galdós7h 48m4.0 (17.2K)$1 · $0.00
Marling HallAngela Margaret Thirkell11h 39m4.0 (2.2K)$1 · $0.00
Even the Dog KnowsJason F. Wright10h 6m4.1 (1K)$20
Howards End (Annotated)E. M. Forster14h 9m4.1 (212.6K)$0.99 · $0.00
The Beautiful and DamnedF. Scott Fitzgerald13h 2m3.9 (80.5K)$23
The Secret ScriptureSebastian Barry9h 45m4.1 (31.4K)$20
ConstanceFranny Moyle13h 1m3.9 (1.2K)$23
Parade's End: The Complete Tetralogy (Annotated)Madox Ford39h 27m4.0 (12.6K)$2 · $0.00
The Complete Works of Guy de Maupassant: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Poems & MemoirsGuy de Maupassant229h 7m4.4 (720)$1.99 · $0.00
A Girl to Come Home toGrace Livingston Hill8h 28m4.1 (857)$1.20 · $0.00
The Complete Parade's End TetralogyMadox Ford39h 12m4.1 (13.9K)$1 · $0.00
The Complete Novels CollectionJane Austen69h 25m4.6 (48.3K)$12 · $0.00
MoonglowMichael Chabon14h 42m4.0 (43K)$33 · $0.00