The Go-Between

by L. P. Hartley Narrated by Sean Barrett

Overview

`The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.' Haunting, moving, evocative, The Go-Between is L.P. Hartley's heartbreaking novel about social constraints and childhood innocence. During the long hot summer of 1900, young Leo Colston is invited to stay for a month at a lordly, aristocratic manor in Norfolk. There he falls in love with his friend's older sister, who commissions him to ferry secret messages to the local farmer, her lover. His naiveté sustains their affair, until ultimately leading to an event that will change their lives irrevocably.

Editorial Reviews

SEPTEMBER 2016 - AudioFile

Narrator Sean Barrett brings his range and sensitivity to this classic coming-of-age novel in which an older man rediscovers his childhood diary. Barrett's natural rhythm contemporizes any anachronisms, and his ability to shift between the weariness of the elderly protagonist and the curiosity and vibrancy of the youth he remembers sounds effortless. As the novel journeys into the heartaches of adolescence, Barrett uses his considerable experience to retain the sense of clandestine intimacy that comes with the writing of a diary. Never overstating emotion, Barrett's reading lulls the listener into a sense of security, making the dramatic events that follow all the more dynamic. He perfectly echoes Hartley's tone—seamlessly weaving romance, drama, and the verve of youth in this timeless Victorian story. Z.S. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

Los Angeles Times

Mr. Hartley is amazingly good, and no reader of serious fiction should miss this book.

Atlantic Monthly

A beautifully written and absorbing book.

Jay Parini

Like Henry James, his most obvious literary forebear, Hartley examines the nuances of morality with a shimmering exactness, focusing on characters like Leo, the narrator of The Go-Between, caught between natural impulses and the social conventions that would thwart them.
— New York Times

Washington Star

It is always a pleasure to watch a conscious literary artist at work. L. P. Hartley is such a one. All his effects are deliberately sought and brilliantly brought off. Yet a thread of shining lyricism runs through...it is a beautiful and controlled feat of story-telling.

SEPTEMBER 2016 - AudioFile

Narrator Sean Barrett brings his range and sensitivity to this classic coming-of-age novel in which an older man rediscovers his childhood diary. Barrett's natural rhythm contemporizes any anachronisms, and his ability to shift between the weariness of the elderly protagonist and the curiosity and vibrancy of the youth he remembers sounds effortless. As the novel journeys into the heartaches of adolescence, Barrett uses his considerable experience to retain the sense of clandestine intimacy that comes with the writing of a diary. Never overstating emotion, Barrett's reading lulls the listener into a sense of security, making the dramatic events that follow all the more dynamic. He perfectly echoes Hartley's tone—seamlessly weaving romance, drama, and the verve of youth in this timeless Victorian story. Z.S. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169199529
Publisher:	Naxos Audiobooks
Publication date:	04/01/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

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