Land of Enchantment

By: Leigh Stein

Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie

When Leigh Stein received a call from an unknown number in July 2011, she let it go to voice mail, assuming it would be her ex-boyfriend, Jason. Instead the call was from his brother: Jason had been killed in a motorcycle accident. He was 23 years old. She had seen him alive just a few weeks earlier.

Leigh first met Jason at an audition for a tragic play. He was 19 and troubled and intensely magnetic, a dead ringer for James Dean. Leigh was 22 and living at home with her parents, trying to figure out what to do with her young-adult life. Within months they had fallen in love and moved to New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment, a place neither of them had ever been. But what was supposed to be a romantic adventure quickly turned sinister, as Jason's behavior went from playful and spontaneous to controlling and erratic, eventually escalating to violence.

Land of Enchantment lyrically explores the heartbreaking complexity of why the person hurting you the most can be impossible to leave. With searing honesty and cutting humor, Leigh wrestles with what made her fall in love with someone so destructive and how to grieve a man who wasn't always good to her.

©2016 Leigh Stein (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A brave and poignant coming-of-age story." ( Publishers Weekly)

Great memoir; distractingly bad narration

I have heard Leigh Stein on podcasts and I've listened to the excellent Self Care, and I really like her, and the trajectory of her life.
Outstanding memoir. I could have done without the jarring Jay McInerney-ish switch to 2nd person late in the novel. But, it's short & artsy & forgiveable, and doesn't diminish the overall work of a thoroughly likeable person relaying some patently painful experiences.
UNNNfortunately.. we must discuss the narration. It was absolutely atrocious. Just for the record, I don't usually give much thought to the narrator. Anything passable tends to be good enough for me. But this was next-level bad. Multiple times I almost gave up, even though I was thoroughly engrossed in the story.
I just don't understand what this narrator was trying for. Some of the time it was this creepy, sultry cutsieness, wholly out of step with the material. But more often (concurrently, really, and throughout) we were treated to this weirdly clipped tone, with consonant endings abruptly clipped, in what I can only assume the narrator felt was a means to "get at" her vision of the protagonist, which is apparently that of a ditzy millennial (which Stein is not). To call this voice an "affectation" is extreme understatement. There's no way this person talks anything like this in regular life. Seriously, what is she trying to do here? "Lookie here, I'm a young, stupid, cute chick!"?? This person should not be in the business of narrating audiobooks.
I may be being too harsh, and if so I'm sorry. Maybe it's my ears.. listen for yourself (the story is worth it!) .. I'd be interested to see if anyone else gets this vibe. To my ears, the distraction-factor of this voice was just off the charts.
It's ironic too, because Stein's other Audible offering has perhaps the finest narration I've heard in an audiobook (by 3 women, sharing duties reading the 3 protagonists).
Maybe Leigh should have read this herself. Anyone could've done better than the affectation-fest I just heard. Honestly, I would've preferred Elmer Fudd over this narrator.
But, despite that... great memoir!

absolutely fantastic

this was one of the best written Memoirs I've ever read. I'm so many levels I would recommend it to absolutely. I will never forget it.