All’s Well - Mona Awad

Written by Mona Awad
Read by Sophie Amoss
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Release date: August 3, 2021
Duration: 13:08:36

A novel about a theater professor who is convinced staging Shakespeare’s most maligned play will remedy all that ails her—but at what cost?

Miranda Fitch’s life is a waking nightmare. The accident that ended her burgeoning acting career left her with excruciating chronic back pain, a failed marriage, and a deepening dependence on painkillers. And now, she’s on the verge of losing her job as a college theater director. Determined to put on Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, the play that promised and cost her everything, she faces a mutinous cast hellbent on staging Macbeth instead. Miranda sees her chance at redemption slip through her fingers.

That’s when she meets three strange benefactors who have an eerie knowledge of Miranda’s past and a tantalizing promise for her future: one where the show goes on, her rebellious students get what’s coming to them, and the invisible doubted pain that’s kept her from the spotlight is made known.

“..As the story unfolds, Miranda becomes increasingly powerful and out of touch with reality, all culminating in one wild opening-night performance. Awad’s characters are deliciously over the top and impossible to forget, as is the author’s gift for morbid humor. The real magic of this novel lies in Awad’s ability to draw the Shakespearean irony out of contemporary tragedy. Were he writing today, Shakespeare would surely have something to say about the opioid crisis, the pitiful state of the arts in higher education, and the chronic medical ignorance of female illness. Endlessly thought-provoking and not to be missed.” - Booklist

AudioFile…”Narrator Sophie Amoss keeps this story engrossing, despite its focus on pain and depression. Forced to give up her promising acting career, Miranda teaches and directs theater at a small college. This year she’s scheduled a production of ALL’S WELL. Amoss delivers harrowing descriptions of Miranda’s years of agonizing treatments and self-medicating. Finally, thanks to three mysterious men and their “golden remedy,” Miranda’s pain ebbs, and Amoss captures her amazement. But now the female lead in ALL’S WELL is in excruciating pain, and everyone believes Miranda’s responsible. Reality is slippery in this novel, but Amoss’s performance will keep listeners tuned in.”