Winner of the 2024 Audie Award for Multi-voiced Performance!
This program includes a bonus conversation between the author and narrator.
"The production's 10 outstanding real-life narrators portray the fictional audiobook's author and its nine narrators. Each of the talented real-life narrators brings their character vividly to life."- AudioFile
One book. Nine readers. Ten changed lives. New York Times bestselling author Erica Bauermeister's No Two Persons is "a gloriously original celebration of fiction, and the ways it deepens our lives."*
That was the beauty of books, wasn't it? They took you places you didn't know you needed to go...
Alice has always wanted to be a writer. Her talent is innate, but her stories remain safe and detached, until a devastating event breaks her heart open, and she creates a stunning debut novel. Her words, in turn, find their way to readers, from a teenager hiding her homelessness, to a free diver pushing himself beyond endurance, an artist furious at the world around her, a bookseller in search of love, a widower rent by grief. Each one is drawn into Alice's novel; each one discovers something different that alters their perspective, and presents new pathways forward for their lives.
Together, their stories reveal how books can affect us in the most beautiful and unexpected of ways—and how we are all more closely connected to one another than we might think.
"With its beautiful parts that add up to a brilliant whole, No Two Persons made my reader's heart sing."—*Nina de Gramont, New York Times bestselling author of The Christie Affair
This program is read by a full cast:
Rachel Jacobs as The Writer
Barrie Kreinik as The Assistant
Braden Wright as The Actor
Jesse Vilinsky as The Artist
Max Meyers as The Diver
Gabra Zackman as The Teenager
Stephen Graybill as The Bookseller
George Newbern as The Caretaker
Cassandra Campbell as The Coordinator
Carol Jacobanis as The Agent
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press.
Winner of the 2024 Audie Award for Multi-voiced Performance!
This program includes a bonus conversation between the author and narrator.
"The production's 10 outstanding real-life narrators portray the fictional audiobook's author and its nine narrators. Each of the talented real-life narrators brings their character vividly to life."- AudioFile
One book. Nine readers. Ten changed lives. New York Times bestselling author Erica Bauermeister's No Two Persons is "a gloriously original celebration of fiction, and the ways it deepens our lives."*
That was the beauty of books, wasn't it? They took you places you didn't know you needed to go...
Alice has always wanted to be a writer. Her talent is innate, but her stories remain safe and detached, until a devastating event breaks her heart open, and she creates a stunning debut novel. Her words, in turn, find their way to readers, from a teenager hiding her homelessness, to a free diver pushing himself beyond endurance, an artist furious at the world around her, a bookseller in search of love, a widower rent by grief. Each one is drawn into Alice's novel; each one discovers something different that alters their perspective, and presents new pathways forward for their lives.
Together, their stories reveal how books can affect us in the most beautiful and unexpected of ways—and how we are all more closely connected to one another than we might think.
"With its beautiful parts that add up to a brilliant whole, No Two Persons made my reader's heart sing."—*Nina de Gramont, New York Times bestselling author of The Christie Affair
This program is read by a full cast:
Rachel Jacobs as The Writer
Barrie Kreinik as The Assistant
Braden Wright as The Actor
Jesse Vilinsky as The Artist
Max Meyers as The Diver
Gabra Zackman as The Teenager
Stephen Graybill as The Bookseller
George Newbern as The Caretaker
Cassandra Campbell as The Coordinator
Carol Jacobanis as The Agent
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press.
Critiques-
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March 13, 2023
Bauermeister’s moving linked collection (after The Scent Keeper) revolves around a novel by a reclusive author. After Alice Wein’s older brother, Peter, a once-promising swimmer, dies from an overdose, she writes a novel titled Theo with an eponymous main character inspired by her brother. Over the next 10 years, Theo is plucked from an agent’s slush pile by a new mother and is later recorded as an audiobook by an actor whose career was hindered by a disease that causes skin discoloration. The stories, all of which feature a life derailed by circumstance, become more engaging as they focus on Theo’s readers. The overarching narrative takes a while to get going—early stories such as “The Writer” are vague—but the author hits her stride with “The Teenager,” in which a secretly homeless scholarship kid finds a lifeline through sympathetic adults. Another standout is “The Caretaker,” in which a widower gets to experience his beloved wife’s presence one more time through her marginalia. “The Agent,” a satisfying closer, checks in on Alice’s agent at the end of her own long career. There’s plenty of charm to this thoughtful take on a book’s impact on its readers. -
This production presents an audiobook within an audiobook. Bauermeister's latest is a collection of 10 interconnected short stories that are woven into a colorful tapestry of a novel, which is being produced as an audiobook. The production's 10 outstanding real-life narrators portray the fictional audiobook's author and its nine narrators. Each of the talented real-life narrators brings their character vividly to life. For example, Rachel Jacobs, as the Author, recounts her journey to find her voice and write the book she was meant to write. Braden Wright, the Actor, loses confidence when a skin condition derails his movie career but gains a stronger voice when he helps bring the fictional audiobook to life. The icing on the cake is the bonus conversation between Bauermeister and master narrator Cassandra Campbell as they discuss the writing and narrating processes. N.E.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
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September 1, 2023
Bauermeister's (The Scent Keeper) book-about-a-book explores the impact of one novel on its readers. The initial chapter, "The Writer," presents the backstory and inspiration for what becomes the book Theo. In "The Assistant," a manuscript reader flags Theo for a literary agent, thus launching the novel's voyage through many lives. "The Diver" introduces a free-diver testing the sport's extremes, with detrimental effects. "The Teenager" follows a student secretly living in a school shed until she is discovered. "The Artist" introduces a free-thinking designer of sea-glass jewelry who resists pressure to be more grounded. An ensemble cast brightens this audiobook, with notable performances by Braden Wright as "the Actor," a former screen actor rediscovering himself as Theo's audiobook narrator; George Newbern as "the Caretaker," a widower finding solace in his wife's notations throughout Theo; and Carol Jacobanis as "the Agent" who brought Theo to publication and is now nearing retirement. Bauermeister points to the deeply personal nature of reading, as each character reacts to and learns from Theo differently. VERDICT Though this work is billed as a novel, listeners may find that it rings truest when approached as a collection of interconnected short stories. For fans of contemplative, bookish books.--Kym Goering
Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
