Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
If I Knew You Were Going To Be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
£0.00 for first 30 days
Buy Now for £12.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
Judy Chicurel's exquisitely written debut evokes the atmosphere of a 1970s summer in a close-knit working-class community on Long Island. For fans of Jennifer Egan and Anne Tyler.
Katie and her young friends face a changing world, with prospects very different from those presented to their parents. The Vietnam War seems pointless to many but has devastated lives that remain broken even after the fighting is over.
As, with bittersweet humour, the characters' experiences unfold, daily events mirror bigger issues: an illegal abortion is plotted; the town is sinking into an economic abyss forcing Katie's friends to leave in search of more promising horizons; drugs claim the lives of those often too high to recognise the danger until it is too late; and Katie dreams of a boy back from Nam who's still fighting a battle she doesn't understand.
If I Knew You Were Going To Be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go touchingly conveys the magic of everyday living during a darkened time.