The Bright Forever
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $13.50
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
various
-
By:
-
Lee Martin
About this listen
This simple act is at the heart of The Bright Forever, a suspenseful, deeply affecting novel about the choices people make that change their lives forever. Keeping fact, speculation, and contradiction playing off one another as the details unfold, author Lee Martin creates a fast-paced story that is as gripping as it is richly human. His beautiful, clear-eyed prose builds to an extremely nuanced portrayal of the complicated give and take among people struggling to maintain their humanity in the shadow of a loss.
Reminiscent of books such as The Little Friend and The Lovely Bones, but most memorable for its own perceptions and power, The Bright Forever is a compelling and emotional tale about the human need to know even the hardest truth.
©2005 Lee Martin (P)2005 Books on Tape, Inc.Critic reviews
"Martin's novel is hard to put down." (Booklist)
"Rich details and raw emotion mix as Martin, in engaging the human desire to excavate the truth, underscores its complex, elusive nature." (Publishers Weekly)
Related to this topic
-
Our Story Begins
- New and Selected Stories
- By: Tobias Wolff
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wolff here returns with fresh revelations - about biding one's time, or experiencing first love, or burying one's mother - that come to a variety of characters in circumstances at once everyday and extraordinary. A retired Marine enrolls in college while her son trains for Iraq. A lawyer takes a difficult deposition. An American in Rome indulges the Gypsy who's picked his pocket.
-
-
Great
- By chris on 04-11-08
By: Tobias Wolff
-
Fallen Angels
- By: Patricia Hickman
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the Great Depression, Jeb Nubey is running from the law when he meets three abandoned children. With nowhere else to go the group passes a stormy night in a comforting church. When they are discovered, a case of mistaken identity ensues. It seems the congregation has been waiting for their new pastor, a widower with three kids. Looks like more trouble for Jeb. Yet the chance for a steady job and three squares a day is too good to turn down.
-
-
Touching
- By Christina on 11-11-04
By: Patricia Hickman
-
The Last Ballad
- A Novel
- By: Wiley Cash
- Narrated by: Karen White, Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twelve times a week, 28-year-old Ella May Wiggins makes the two-mile trek to and from her job on the night shift at American Mill No. Two in Bessemer City, North Carolina. The insular community considers the mill's owners - the newly arrived Goldberg brothers - white but not American and expects them to pay Ella May and other workers less because they toil alongside African Americans like Violet, Ella May's best friend. While the dirty, hazardous job at the mill earns Ella May a paltry nine dollars for 72 hours of work each week, it's the only opportunity she has.
-
-
Dryer than a popcorn fart
- By Scott Wilson on 02-11-18
By: Wiley Cash
-
She Got Up Off the Couch
- By: Haven Kimmel
- Narrated by: Haven Kimmel
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we last saw Zippy, she was oblivious to the storm that was brewing in her home. Her mother, Delonda, had literally just gotten up off the couch and ridden her rickety bicycle down the road. Her dad was off somewhere, gambling or "working." And Zippy was lost in her own fabulous world of exploring the fringes of Moorland, Indiana.
-
-
Great fun !!
- By Kim on 04-20-11
By: Haven Kimmel
-
The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove
- A Novel
- By: Susan Gregg Gilmore
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bezellia Grove was born into the most prominent of Nashville families, but that didn’t stop her from having an alcoholic mother and a distant, adulterous father. Her nanny, Maizelle, and Nathaniel, the handyman, are the people who have taken care of her since she can remember. She considers them family, but her parents just consider them servants because they are Black. When Bezellia has a clandestine romance with Nathaniel's son, Whites and Blacks unite in fury at the young couple.
-
-
light southern fiction
- By suzanne on 02-08-13
-
Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."
-
-
filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
-
Our Story Begins
- New and Selected Stories
- By: Tobias Wolff
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wolff here returns with fresh revelations - about biding one's time, or experiencing first love, or burying one's mother - that come to a variety of characters in circumstances at once everyday and extraordinary. A retired Marine enrolls in college while her son trains for Iraq. A lawyer takes a difficult deposition. An American in Rome indulges the Gypsy who's picked his pocket.
-
-
Great
- By chris on 04-11-08
By: Tobias Wolff
-
Fallen Angels
- By: Patricia Hickman
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the Great Depression, Jeb Nubey is running from the law when he meets three abandoned children. With nowhere else to go the group passes a stormy night in a comforting church. When they are discovered, a case of mistaken identity ensues. It seems the congregation has been waiting for their new pastor, a widower with three kids. Looks like more trouble for Jeb. Yet the chance for a steady job and three squares a day is too good to turn down.
-
-
Touching
- By Christina on 11-11-04
By: Patricia Hickman
-
The Last Ballad
- A Novel
- By: Wiley Cash
- Narrated by: Karen White, Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twelve times a week, 28-year-old Ella May Wiggins makes the two-mile trek to and from her job on the night shift at American Mill No. Two in Bessemer City, North Carolina. The insular community considers the mill's owners - the newly arrived Goldberg brothers - white but not American and expects them to pay Ella May and other workers less because they toil alongside African Americans like Violet, Ella May's best friend. While the dirty, hazardous job at the mill earns Ella May a paltry nine dollars for 72 hours of work each week, it's the only opportunity she has.
-
-
Dryer than a popcorn fart
- By Scott Wilson on 02-11-18
By: Wiley Cash
-
She Got Up Off the Couch
- By: Haven Kimmel
- Narrated by: Haven Kimmel
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we last saw Zippy, she was oblivious to the storm that was brewing in her home. Her mother, Delonda, had literally just gotten up off the couch and ridden her rickety bicycle down the road. Her dad was off somewhere, gambling or "working." And Zippy was lost in her own fabulous world of exploring the fringes of Moorland, Indiana.
-
-
Great fun !!
- By Kim on 04-20-11
By: Haven Kimmel
-
The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove
- A Novel
- By: Susan Gregg Gilmore
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bezellia Grove was born into the most prominent of Nashville families, but that didn’t stop her from having an alcoholic mother and a distant, adulterous father. Her nanny, Maizelle, and Nathaniel, the handyman, are the people who have taken care of her since she can remember. She considers them family, but her parents just consider them servants because they are Black. When Bezellia has a clandestine romance with Nathaniel's son, Whites and Blacks unite in fury at the young couple.
-
-
light southern fiction
- By suzanne on 02-08-13
-
Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."
-
-
filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
-
Blue Diary
- By: Alice Hoffman
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Ethan Ford fails to show up for work on a brilliant summer morning, none of his neighbors would guess that, for more than 13 years, he has been running from his past. His true nature has been locked away, as hidden as his real identity. But sometimes locks spring open, and the devastating truths of Ethan Ford's history shatter the small-town peace of Monroe, affecting family and friends alike.
-
-
Medetation on consequences of secrets revealed
- By Lora S. on 10-13-17
By: Alice Hoffman
-
The Man in the Crooked Hat
- By: Harry Dolan
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Private investigator Jack Pellum has spent two years searching for the man he believes murdered his wife - a man he last saw wearing a peacoat and a fedora. Months of posting flyers and combing through crime records yields no leads. Then a local writer commits suicide, and he leaves a bewildering message that may be the first breadcrumb in a winding trail of unsolved murders....
-
-
Crazy Glue'd Me To Story
- By Ted on 01-11-18
By: Harry Dolan
-
Bullet in the Brain
- By: Tobias Wolff
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anders is an angry, cynical man. A book critic known for his scathing reviews, he finds any excuse to dismiss, belittle, or insult. This afternoon is no more agitating than the next. Angers finds himself in a long line at the bank, waiting to reach a teller. Even after two men - wearing masks and carrying guns - take control of the building, Anders is unfazed. It's this behavior that lands him with a pistol against his stomach and a man screamingin his face. And when the bank robber, indignant over Anders' behavior, shoots the book critic in the head, his mind floats through the memories of his life, settling on one particular event....
-
-
The Perfect Example
- By Sarah on 08-01-17
By: Tobias Wolff
-
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
-
-
Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
-
The Last Dead Girl
- By: Harry Dolan
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a rainy night in April, a chance encounter on a lonely road draws David into a romance with Jana Fletcher, a beautiful young law student. Jana is an enigma: living in a run-down apartment and sporting a bruise on her cheek that she refuses to explain. David would like to know her secrets, but he lets them lie-until it's too late. When Jana is brutally murdered, the police consider David a prime suspect.
-
-
A great, dark read, appropriate reader too.
- By Karen on 05-01-14
By: Harry Dolan
-
The Penny
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Meyer, Deborah Bedford
- Narrated by: Emily Janice Card
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jenny Blake has a theory about life: big decisions often don't amount to much, but little decisions sometimes transform everything. Her theory proves true the summer she's 14, when she makes the decision to pick up a penny embedded in asphalt and consequently ends up stopping a robbery, getting a job, and meeting someone who changes her life forever: Miss Shaw.
-
-
Absoultly wonderful
- By Debbie on 08-05-07
By: Joyce Meyer, and others
-
Turtle Moon
- By: Alice Hoffman
- Narrated by: Sandra Burr
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Turtle Moon transports the listener to Verity, Florida, a place where anything can happen during the month of May, when migrating sea turtles come to town, mistaking the glow of the streetlights for the moon. A young single mother is murdered in her apartment and her baby is gone. Keith, a 12-year-old boy in the same apartment building also disappears. In pursuit of the baby, the boy and the killer, are Keith's divorced mother and a cop who himself was once considered the meanest boy in town.
-
-
An enchanting story
- By A.J. on 05-09-11
By: Alice Hoffman
-
Walk Two Moons
- By: Sharon Creech
- Narrated by: Hope Davis
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her own award-winning style, Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion.
-
-
Such a great story wonderfully told
- By Susan on 02-06-12
By: Sharon Creech
-
The Lost Girls
- A Novel
- By: Heather Young
- Narrated by: Alice Rosengard, Laurel Schroeder
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family - her father commits suicide, and her mother and two older sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child. Sixty years later, Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person who might care: her grandniece, Justine.
-
-
Engaging story spanning three generations.
- By LilMissMolly on 09-23-16
By: Heather Young
-
Shadow Show
- All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury
- By: Sam Weller - editor, Mort Castle - editor
- Narrated by: George Takei, Edward Herrmann, Kate Mulgrew, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ray Bradbury - peerless storyteller, poet of the impossible, and one of America's most beloved authors - is a literary giant whose remarkable career spanned seven decades. Now 26 of today's most diverse and celebrated authors offer new short works in honor of the master; stories of heart, intelligence, and dark wonder from a remarkable range of creative artists.
-
-
THE MAN WHO FORGOT RAY BRADBURY
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 05-27-17
By: Sam Weller - editor, and others
-
The Star Side of Bird Hill
- By: Naomi Jackson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two sisters, ages 10 and 16, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados, after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live, for the summer of 1989, with their grandmother, Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah. Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother's limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations.
-
-
My absolute favorite book of all time
- By Eme on 07-16-15
By: Naomi Jackson
-
Funerals for Horses
- By: Catherine Ryan Hyde
- Narrated by: Carly Robins
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ella Ginsberg's brother, Simon, has disappeared. His clothing, shoes, and watch were found abandoned near a freight line track in Central California. His jockey shorts and wallet were never found. The police have no clue, and Simon's wife had no warning that anything was wrong. Ella takes off on foot across much of California and Arizona, thinking she can find Simon using nothing but her knowledge of the way he might think. Her search leads her to the Navajo Nation in Arizona.
-
-
Funerals for Horses
- By Carolyn Ferrell on 03-26-18
What listeners say about The Bright Forever
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Diane Nizza
- 01-02-12
A little sad
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
Over-all the time listening to the book was well-spent, but I would not recommend it to others. Although well-written, I did not like the plot.
Would you ever listen to anything by Lee Martin again?
Yes.
Which scene was your favorite?
No comment.
Did The Bright Forever inspire you to do anything?
No
Any additional comments?
No
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- RueRue
- 09-18-17
Beautiful and very sad
Beautifully written, a small town tragedy. Each character has suffered loss and lonliness. Highly recommended if you like character-driven stories. Just be warned that it is very sad.
Narrators are:
Susan Deneker
Bo Foxworth
Kirby Heybourne
Lee Leon Cavalough
All the narrators were excellent.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Karin Fuller
- 10-31-23
Engrossing book, read by an excellent reader
What a phenomenal book. I was so completely drawn into the story that I was even listening when I only had a minute or two, which I've never done before. I prefer my listening chunks to be large. This novel was masterfully written. I just came on Audible looking for more by the same author. These characters are going to stick with me for a long time. Every one of them.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- R. F
- 02-27-23
Eerie plot
This book was published after The Lovely Bones and it shows. Same content- child abduction and death, creepy man with inappropriate love for a child and his involvement in the plot. Save your time and read The Lovely Bones.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!