Audiobooks narrated by Martha Plimpton

A beautiful, startling, and candid memoir about growing up without boundaries, in which Ariel Leve recalls with candor and sensitivity the turbulent time she endured as the only child of an unstable poet for a mother and a beloved but largely absent father, and explores the consequences of a psychologically harrowing childhood as she seeks refuge from the past and recovers what was lost.Ariel Leve grew up in Manhattan with an eccentric mother she describes as a poet, an artist, a self-appointed troublemaker and attention seeker. Leve learned to become her own parent, taking care of herself and her mother's needs. There would be uncontrolled, impulsive rages followed with denial, disavowed responsibility, and then extreme outpourings of affection. How does a child learn to feel safe in this topsy-turvy world of conditional love?Leve captures the chaos and lasting impact of a child's life under siege and explores how the coping mechanisms she developed to survive later incapacitated her as an adult. There were material comforts, but no emotional safety, except for summer visits to her father's home in South East Asia,an escape that was terminated after he attempted to gain custody. Following the death of a loving caretaker, a succession of replacements raised Leve,relationships which resulted in intense attachment and loss. It was not until decades later, when Leve moved to other side of the world, that she could begin to emancipate herself from the past. In a relationship with a man who has children, caring for them yields clarity of what was missing.In telling her haunting story, Leve seeks to understand the effects of chronic psychological maltreatment on a child's developing brain, and to discover how to build a life for herself that she never dreamed possible: An unabbreviated life.

Ariel Leve (Author), Martha Plimpton (Narrator)

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Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart

A funny book that makes you cry. A sad book that makes you laugh. A book about two sisters and their family that makes you wish you were part of it--and grateful that you are not. In short, this book is one surprise after another. The only thing that is not a surprise is that Vera B. Williams has created a wholly unforgettable, absolutely wonderful portrait of Amber, Essie, and their world. Open the book. You will never be the same again.

Vera B. Williams (Author), Martha Plimpton (Narrator)

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A Chair For Always

There are some things that Rosa just knows. She knows that she can't wait to meet her new baby cousin, due to be born at any minute right upstairs. She knows that she will grow up and move away and maybe go to college, and perhaps even become the president of the United States. And she knows that the chair'that wonderful, beautiful, beloved chair, the chair for her mother'will always be there. Always. Just the way it is. Covered in velvet with roses all over it, ready for who-knows-what new adventure . . .

Vera B. Williams (Author), Martha Plimpton (Narrator)

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A Chair For My Mother and Other Stories

Vera B. Williams (Author), Martha Plimpton (Narrator)

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A Chair for My Mother

Vera B. Williams (Author), Martha Plimpton (Narrator)

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Cherries and Cherry Pits

Vera B. Williams (Author), Martha Plimpton (Narrator)

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Music, Music for Everyone

Vera B. Williams (Author), Martha Plimpton (Narrator)

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Something Special for Me

Vera B. Williams (Author), Martha Plimpton (Narrator)

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Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe

Vera B. Williams (Author), Martha Plimpton (Narrator)

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After This: A Novel

Alice McDermott's powerful new novel wittily captures the social, political and spiritual upheavals of the mid-twentieth century through the story of a family, and the changing world in which they live. While Michael and Annie Keane taste the alternately intoxicating and bitter first fruits of the sexual revolution, their older, more tentative brother lags behind, until he finds himself on the way to Vietnam. Meanwhile, Clare, the youngest child of their aging parents, seeks to maintain an almost saintly innocence. After This, alive with the passions and tragedies of a determining era in our history, portrays the clash of traditional, faith-bound life and modern freedom, while also capturing, with McDermott's inimitable understanding and grace, the joy, sorrow, anger, and love that underpin, and undermine, what it is to be a family

Alice McDermott (Author), Martha Plimpton (Narrator)

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Mrs. Kimble: A Novel

In her masterful first novel Mrs. Kimble, Jennifer Haigh delivers the compelling story of three women who marry the same man -- an enigmatic opportunist named Ken Kimble. Birdie. 1961. He was the choir director at a Southern Bible college. At practice she followed his hands with her eyes. Watching him, she thought of the Pietà: Mary weeping over her son\'s crucified body, his naked arms smooth as milk, his chest delicately ribbed like the underside of a flower. She imagined his shoulders bare beneath his shirt, his body long and white. One evening he approached her after practice. Joan. 1969. She met him at a pool party in Florida. His lank dark hair hung to his shoulders; he wore faded jeans and a colorful cotton blouse. His eyes were a startling blue. No man had touched her in a year. He was engaged to someone else. Dinah. 1979 They met by accident in Washington, D.C. Their paths had intersected once before, when she was a teenager. \"You\'re a beautiful girl,\" he\'d told her, oblivious to the hideous scar on her face. He was old enough to be her father. Kimble is revealed through the eyes of the women he seduces: his first wife, Birdie Bell, who struggles to hold herself together in the months following his desertion; his second wife, Joan Cohen, a lonely heiress shaken by personal tragedy, who sees in Kimble her last chance at happiness; and finally Dinah Whitacre, a beautiful but damaged woman half his age. Woven throughout is the story of Kimble\'s son, Charlie, whose life is forever affected by a father he barely remembers. Ken Kimble is a chameleon, a man able to become, at least for a while, all things to all women. To each of the three Mrs. Kimbles, he appears as a hero to whom powerful needs and nameless longings may be attached. Only later do they glimpse the truth about this elusive, unknowable man. A captivating exploration of human love, marriage, and the illusions upon which it is founded, Mrs. Kimble presents a fascinating psychological portrait of a mesmerizing opportunist and the women who believe in him. Beautifully wrought, stunningly original, Jennifer Haigh\'s sparkling debut marks the arrival of a remarkable new talent.

Jennifer Haigh (Author), Martha Plimpton (Narrator)

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Diary: A Novel

Misty Wilmot has had it. Once a promising young artist, she's now stuck on an island ruined by tourism, drinking too much and working as a waitress in a hotel. Her husband, a contractor, is in a coma after a suicide attempt, but that doesn't stop his clients from threatening Misty with lawsuits over a series of vile messages they've found on the walls of houses he remodeled. Suddenly, though, Misty finds her artistic talent returning as she begins a period of compulsive painting. Inspired but confused by this burst of creativity, she soon finds herself a pawn in a larger conspiracy that threatens to cost hundreds of lives. What unfolds is a dark, hilarious story from America's most inventive nihilist, and Palahniuk's most impressive work to date.

Chuck Palahniuk (Author), Martha Plimpton (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Martha Plimpton