Among the Ten Thousand Things

A Novel

By: Julia Pierpont

Narrated by: Hillary Huber

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE AND THE HUFFINGTON POST

For fans of Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Franzen, Lorrie Moore, and Curtis Sittenfeld, Among the Ten Thousand Things is a dazzling first novel, a portrait of an American family on the cusp of irrevocable change, and a startlingly original story of love and time lost.

Jack Shanley is a well-known New York artist, charming and vain, who doesn’t mean to plunge his family into crisis. His wife, Deb, gladly left behind a difficult career as a dancer to raise the two children she adores. In the ensuing years, she has mostly avoided coming face-to-face with the weaknesses of the man she married. But then an anonymously sent package arrives in the mail: a cardboard box containing sheaves of printed emails chronicling Jack’s secret life. The package is addressed to Deb, but it’s delivered into the wrong hands: her children’s.

With this vertiginous opening begins a debut that is by turns funny, wise, and indescribably moving. As the Shanleys spin apart into separate orbits, leaving New York in an attempt to regain their bearings, fifteen-year-old Simon feels the allure of adult freedoms for the first time, while eleven-year-old Kay wanders precariously into a grown-up world she can’t possibly understand. Writing with extraordinary precision, humor, and beauty, Julia Pierpont has crafted a timeless, hugely enjoyable novel about the bonds of family life—their brittleness, and their resilience.

©2015 Julia Pierpont (P)2015 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“A luscious, smart summer novel . . . about a family blown apart and yet still painfully tethered together, written by a blazingly talented young author whose prose is so assured and whose observations are so precise and deeply felt that it’s almost an insult to bring up her age. . . . [Julia] Pierpont illustrates how hard it can be to grow up, at any age—just one of the many reasons Among the Ten Thousand Things is such an impressive debut.”—Helen Schulman, The New York Times Book Review

“This book is one of the funniest, and most emotionally honest, I’ve read in a long time.”—Jonathan Safran Foer

“An emotionally sophisticated, nuanced examination of a splintering Upper West Side New York City family . . . Among the Ten Thousand Things rises above for its imagined structure, sentence-by-sentence punch, and pure humanity. Weaving readers through the New York streets with the Shanleys, and in and out of each of their minds as they try to survive the infidelity that’s torn them from the life they’ve built, Pierpont has written a debut so honest and mature that it will resonate with even the most action-hungry readers—perhaps against reason. Her story is the one we’ll be talking about this summer, and well beyond.”—Meredith Turits, Vanity Fair

So so

The story was ok - half interesting and half depressing.

I had a really hard time with the narrators voice. Her interpretation of the kids was poor. I thought she made them sound stupid and rude, and her tone was often disgusted at whatever situation was happening at the time.

On a few occasions I considered not finishing it, but wanted to see what happened, so I suffered through the last couple hours.

Oh Kay, Oh Simon...

A sculptor, Jack, ends a casual but intense affair with a young admirer, almost a groupie, that lasted several months. The novel opens after the break-up, when the young woman writes a letter to Deb, Jack's wife, enclosing a box of printouts of the passionate emails Jack had sent during the affair. Regrettably, the box is opened by Jack and Deb's 11-year-old daughter, Kay, and the novel takes off. The novel glides easily among the points of view of Jack, Deb, Kay and her 15-year-old brother Simon. Jack shows some remorse, but he is preoccupied with his latest gallery show. Deb grows angrier. And Kay and Simon, supporting characters, deal with their parents' mess in their own troubled and surprising ways.

The author makes a surprising structural choice midway. In a brief chapter, she discloses what happens to her four major characters in the following decades, then returns to the current story for the balance of the novel. It is a stunning move, but it also makes the second half of the novel less suspenseful. There are still plenty of nice moments, some humor and some intriguing new characters, but there is also a sense of futility. We know how it all turns out. Maybe we feel more for the characters, knowing how they will end up. Overall, the novel is very well-written and always believable.

The narration by Hillary Huber was excellent. She had a voice that sounded like Deb, soft and slow and calm, almost as if she'd taken a Xanax. She does a nice job differentiating the voices without calling attention to herself.

Great Narrator

What made the experience of listening to Among the Ten Thousand Things the most enjoyable?

Hillary Huber's narration really knocked me out; it added so much to this story.

Re the story itself, Julia Pierpont writes beautifully and vividly, and this is an amazing assured debut novel. I was ambivalent about the timeline switch in the 2nd section, though; overall, it struck me as more of a stunt than as anything that deepened the story.

What about Hillary Huber’s performance did you like?

She did a beautiful job differentiating between the key characters. Most narrators vary their voice to distinguish between the characters. She did that to some extent, but she also did something better and, I think, much harder - she subtly varied her delivery. I definitely plan to look for other books that she has narrated.

Great Start, lost me halfway through.

I believe the story had a very real and interesting beginning and you would be thinking it would go one way but then the story starts focusing on something else. A lot of time jump and not an ending I enjoyed.

Not a fan of the narrator

Would you listen to Among the Ten Thousand Things again? Why?

No - the narrator's voice drove me crazy. It was like she was high throughout the story. Will not listen to another book that she narrates.

How could the performance have been better?

More inflection in the narrator's voice would have improved the performance greatly. She could also work on her character voices.

Exquisite writing but not much plot

I love the way this writer writes. I think I would even enjoy her grocery list. However, the narrator read to slowly and there wasn't much plot.

Not great

The characters were decently developed and story was going along pretty well when suddenly the narrative switched to tell the future like it was a Christmas card report you might send out. Then it switched back to the story and the characters in real time. I found this future interruption disconcerting and think the book would've been better without it. The beginning was better than the rest of the book. Only fair in my opinion.

Expected more

Any additional comments?

I had no problems with the performance, but after such great reviews, I thought the book would be more interesting.

Too Disjointed

I totally get what the author was trying to do, but for some reason the story failed to engage as a story. It was just snippets of reality during a turbulent time for a family.

The narrator was excellent and that saved it.

Narration flawed by severe vocal fry

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

This book is well observed and well written, but was almost too prosaic in its observations and story. All the drama occurs in the first half hour or so.

What didn’t you like about Hillary Huber’s performance?

The reader has severe vocal fry, which is quite annoying. She has a deep, sexy voice that's nice to listen to for about 2 minutes only.