Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty

By: Ramona Ausubel

Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers

From the award-winning author of No One Is Here Except All of Us comes an imaginative novel about a wealthy New England family in the 1960s and '70s that suddenly loses its fortune - and its bearings.

Labor Day 1976, Martha's Vineyard. Summering at the family beach house along this moneyed coast of New England, Fern and Edgar - married with three children - are happily preparing for a family birthday celebration when they learn that the unimaginable has occurred: There is no more money. More specifically, there's no more money in the estate of Fern's recently deceased parents, which, as the sole source of Fern and Edgar's income, had allowed them to live this beautiful, comfortable life despite their professed anti-money ideals.

Quickly the once-charmed family unravels. In distress and confusion, Fern and Edgar are each tempted away on separate adventures: she on a road trip with a stranger, he on an ill-advised sailing voyage with another woman. The three children are left for days with no guardian whatsoever in an improvised Neverland helmed by the tender, witty, and resourceful Cricket, age nine.

Brimming with humanity and wisdom, humor and bite, and imbued with both the whimsical and the profound, Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty is a story of American wealth, class, family, and mobility approached by award-winner Ramona Ausubel with a breadth of imagination and understanding that is fresh, surprising, and exciting.

©2016 Ramona Ausubel (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Rich, vivid story telling

This novel is like a long, summer car ride. Beautifully written and relevant. The audible version enhances the text, but even just reading it sparked so many reactions. Will be rereading this and teaching from it this year!

Compelling

Couldnt stop thinking about it or put it down. Worth the credit and then some.

Some good writing but not for me

I was bored as often as I wasn’t despite the jolting narration .
Fern was interesting at times, but the story really wasn’t despite some of my favorite themes and eras.
The young, privileged, white, self-involved, parenting trend of the late 60s and early 70s that led to the abandonment of the children was hilarious and tragic and desperate and relatable, but I didn’t take them seriously.
The cutting between timelines and characters wasn’t particularly artful and transitions took a long time to get used to. Might have been smoother if I was reading .
I was impatient with the sometimes saccharine descriptions and internal voices over-explaining that seemed almost seemed intrusive but this might be the narration which grated on me .
I prefer a much less animated , charactery reading of dialog. A less emotive, less musical read works better for me. This narration was like switching between a cartoon characters dialog, and an epic poem, where most sentences are performed in either melody or rhythm that’s distracting rather than enhancing . I bet she’s an excellent theater actor. She got bad direction in my opinion . Just not my preference.