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What Luck, This Life

Kathryn SchwilleNarrated by various narrators, Richard Ferrone, Stephen Bel Davies, Prentice Onayemi, Scott Aiello, Michael David Axtell, Jessica B. Harris, Amanda Cobb

Length5h 29m

About this audiobook

The Columbia space shuttle and its contents rain down on the people of Kiser, Texas, in Kathryn Schwille’s imaginative debut novel set six weeks before the invasion of Iraq. What Luck, This Life begins in the aftermath of the space shuttle’s break-up, as the people of Piney Woods watch their pastures swarm with searchers and reporters bluster at their doors. A shop owner defends herself against a sexual predator who is pushed to new boldness after he is disinvited to his family reunion. A closeted father facing a divorce that will leave his gifted boy adrift retrieves an astronaut’s remains. An engineer who dreams of orbiting earth joins a search for debris and instead uncovers an old neighbor’s buried longing. In a chorus of voices spanning places and years, What Luck, This Life explores the Columbia disaster’s surprising fallout for a town beset by the tensions of class, race, and missed opportunity. Evoking Sherwood Anderson’s classic Winesburg, Ohio and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, the novel’s unforgettable characters struggle with family upheaval and mortality’s grip and a luminous book emerges—filled with heartache, beauty, and warmth.

Audiobook details

GenreGeneral Fiction, Fantasy

Length5 hrs 29 mins

Narrated byvarious narrators, Richard Ferrone, Stephen Bel Davies, Prentice Onayemi, Scott Aiello, Michael David Axtell, Jessica B. Harris, Amanda Cobb

FormatAudiobook

Publish dateSep 18, 2018

LanguageEnglish

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About the author

Kathryn Schwille

Kathryn Schwille’s fiction has appeared in New Letters, Memorious, Crazyhorse, West Branch, Sycamore Review, and other literary journals. She was an award-winning newspaper reporter before moving to North Carolina to become an editor at the Charlotte Observer. A graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, she lives with her husband in Charlotte, North Carolina.View all by Kathryn Schwille