The Listeners

by Leni Zumas

The Listeners Hardcover Edition

Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism, Literary Fiction, Novels, Music, Adult, Book Club

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Leni Zumas is the author of RED CLOCKS (Little, Brown, 2018); THE LISTENERS (Tin House, 2012); and FAREWELL NAVIGATOR: STORIES (Open City, 2008). She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she is Director of Creative Writing at Portland State University.

Reviews

[C · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. The good first: I got this book through Indispensable and the packaging is fantastic. The cloth cover with the imprint and the uncut pages. The not-quite-full-sized-hardcover size. Swoon. And the font! Styled yet familiar and readable. I am certain that the packaging was the only reason I finished this book.

Other than that, this book lacks. The writing was overly deliberate and MFA-y styled in a way that was at first distracting and then became unpleasant. There was weird pacing in which mostly nothing happens, and then an important revelation occurs but is subsequently ignored and unexplored, and then nothing happens again. Also, none of the characters really made sense, save for maybe one (the little brother). But it’s okay, book, you’re still really pretty.

[Caroljean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would love, love, love to give this more stars. I feel ripped up about it. I love the language here, it makes everything unfamiliar, and wonderful, the strange world building vocabulary of children, of course it calls attention to itself and I thought it was amazing and enchanting.
However it didn't all add up for me. Quinn's tragedies. It was like stepping into a fog, seeing glimpses at a time, fitting those images together, performing math with them, and understanding in the end what all these people had gone through, but...nothing happened. Everything was just revealed, slowly, artfully, meticulously, but in the course of the story nothing changed, the fog was lifted, and that was it. We were in the same place with the same people, who would continue forever the same. It was lovely so many times, made me cry in the end, but in the end I just can't review it higher when it seemed so much to be just a doling out of information the characters know the whole time.
First novel though, so still impressed, and I will definitely check out her short fiction and any other novels.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because Powell's told me to, and I resisted at first. ANOTHER book about a 30-something female who felt middle aged (??) and washed up and didn't have her act together, living in a big city. Nothing new.

But then, I found this book to be profoundly multi-layered. You could review the words, follow a plot, and figure out what happened. But if you were willing to follow the naming of things, you could strike a deeper sound in the book. And then, one more layer down, there was a double meaning in the namings that led you to a level of impressive careful stitching.

If this book were only the plot, I would not recommend it. There was nothing delicate in the narrative. Did the sisters have to have switched places? Did the accident have to be so gruesome for the relationships to erode? Did Riley have to be so cringeworthingly beat up all the time? Probably not. But the poetry of her words made it very worthwhile a read.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Followers of my reviews know that I'm a sucker for novels with disjointed storylines which connect slowly as you proceed through the book. Which means that The Listeners is perfect. Unfortunately due to the nature of the book, if I describe the plot I will give away the story and it's best if you read it in order to put the pieces together. Hell I would say avoid reading the blurb because you don't even know the main protagonist's name till you're way into the book

The chapters are brief - the longest is about 8 pages long, the rest vary between one paragraph and 2 pages, however every chapter is important as it solves the mysteries that lie in the book. Also thanks to the brevity of the chapters, the book is readable - rather like a convoluted mystery. The post modern writing style may not appeal to everyone but if you stick with it you'll probably have as much fun as I did piecing everything together.

[Dale Philbrick]

Gave up on this one... the prose was difficult to follow to the point where it was distracting and making me not want to finish the book. I think there is an interesting story hidden in here but I got too turned off by the pretentious style that I didn't want to hunt for it anymore.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be on a bunch of best of 2012 lists in six months time. I wrote a blurb for this beast. Here's what I wrote: "Leni Zumas's visceral debut novel is a darkly funny and disturbing rager. Weaving a dreamlike coming-of-age story with the melancholic tales of a rock band self-destructing and a family's loss, Zumas's deft language careens through the lives of her characters with killer sentence after killer sentence. It's a crushing, dazzling performance."
And I'm not exaggerating!

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really admired the writing style; it's a smart, edgy book. This book had the potential of becoming a new favorite with its dark plot and bizarre language, but the grotesque imagery was just too much for me. There were several points where I felt that it was completely unnecessary even. A fascinating read, but this one's just not for me.

[Erik · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really excited to read this, but in the end this book really disappointed me. It reads like someone's writing submission to the Iowa Writers Workshop. The language draws so much attention to itself that I was always aware that I was reading a story and never able to get lost in it. The characters are all slight and mostly uninteresting. At least it's a quick read.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quinn, the subject of The Listeners is a synesthetic anorexic ex-band member, with plenty of trite issues that would have fallen flat if she had been in the hands of an author other than Leni Zumas. The author's intense and inventive style is what makes this novel worth discovering, and the reader invested in Quinn and her actions. The points of view alternate between times in the plot, and between a more hazy memory/recollection to first person narration of events. Quinn's early tragic life events in addition to her bizarrely relatable neuroses make her a memorable narrator, and The Listeners an impressive overall first novel for Zumas.

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a little conflicted about this book. I've had it for a long time; I actually got it when the author was a guest at a writing camp I attended in high school. But maybe it was too avant-garde for my taste.
Towards the end, with building up to a revelation in the climax, it reminded me a bit of Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle (A book I love.) but I didn't feel like it had the same force or inevitability of that novel.
One of the most frustrating things about this book is the way characters are introduced. Which is to say, they aren't. Names are mentioned frequently but it took me well past page 150 to really understand who ANYONE attached to the names was.
I give this book pretty good points for synesthesia in the sisters and I thought it conveyed that well - but now I'm going to take away a few of those points for the reliance on shock prose. I HATE media that relies solely on shock. In my personal opinion, the worst was about a third of the way in. At the beginning, there are some excerpts from fan letters people had sent to Quinn's band in the past. One of them is from a neo-Nazi group but is never again addressed. I did not understand the reason or need for the inclusion of anti-semetic language and it played no part in the story or message as far as I could tell. It was pretty upsetting to see, to be honest.

[Susan DeFreitas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A close study of family constellation dynamics, post-traumatic coping mechanisms, and aging punk rock syndrome (I made that one up), this is character-driven fiction at its finest.

[Amy Prosenjak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of wacky but it worked, the story moved right along and you could feel the character’s sad struggles.

[SabCo T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

First and foremost, this book, at least in the format I have/had, has a mix of cut and uncut pages. I kinda loved that, especially since it really matched the feel of this book.

After I finished reading it, I had to sit and process it awhile. There’s a lot of information and concepts within the book that took awhile to try and sort through.

As the synopsis explains, the book is from the perspective of Quinn, a washed up former ‘punk rocker’ who hasn’t known what to do with their life, especially after their band broke up. They come from a strange family and a strange life, and never really got over the terrible death of their younger sister that their family refuses to talk about to this day. [Sidenote, due to random context clues in the book, I am using ‘they’ as Quinn’s pronoun due to them speaking about not quite being a girl, and not born a boy, either]

The way the book is written is probably one of the most unique styles I’ve ever read. It definitely feels more like it’s written how someone speaks, or how someone thinks. It’s all over the place, and there are times where there’s two sentences on a page, to huge unbroken paragraphs, to random scattered paragraphs in the middle of a page.

The book rotates through multiple different timeframes. Quinn’s childhood, the current/present, Quinn’s time in their band, Quinn’s time in school, and random diary entries/song lyrics. There’s no rhyme or reason to the switching around, which got a little confusing at times until you read deeper into said section/chapter.

Quinn definitely reminds me of some people I know personally. So quite often I sort of imagined them as said people I know who also happen to sort of be genderqueer post-band punk dropouts-ish kinda. The main thing that this book definitely emphasized however, is how fucked up Quinn is.

Between a weird-ass childhood with strange parents, and their siblings being weird as well [sidenote, the sister that died also was both a bully and the weirdest of the kids], and then their younger sister dying a violent, terrible death, Quinn has many mental breakdowns that happens and continue on through their entire life. Some of these triggers also include certain foods, smells, hallucinations, and irrational fears/phobias that caused them to be hospitalized [both regular and mental] more than once. Tragedy continues all their life as well, many relationships, including the end of their successful band and music career that ended in the loss of all the fingers on the hand of someone Quinn held dear.

It’s really hard to explain this book without giving key points away, while also actually trying to explain the feel of it.

All I can say is that the book is a wild ride. It’s so weird, but also so good. And definitely fucked up in a lot of ways. You also don’t really get a concrete ending.

Be warned of gore/blood descriptions and starvation/anorexia descriptions as well. [I promise it’s good though]

I give The Listeners 4/5 Menstrual-Blood-Eating Worms

“The clerk had two thumbs on his left hand. One was normal, the other a nub of flesh and nail sprouting from the foot of the normal one. Out of politeness I tried not to look at it, but every time I bought cigarettes there came a moment when he turned and I could watch the second thumb. It seemed to possess a kind of intelligence. A wise baby tentacle with powers of its own.”

- - - - -

“Ever had your ass eaten by two guys at once?”
“Why no,” I said.
“It’s not a laughing matter,” she muttered.

- - - - -

“The sounds this band made were torn wings, crusts of glitter hills, valleys of black flame, clouds cut in three by red lightning, bluish brain rising from cankered feet. Every hair on me pointed at the ceiling. The thick poles of sadness that stood in me were yanked out by the singer’s screeching and howling, and my shoulders fluttered. The drunks were heaving and keeling and thwacking, each hit pulling the veins in my chest closer to the surface.”

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a dot to dot this novel slowly reveals itself whilst holding some things back, allowing the reader to fill in the missing details and uncover the links between the events and the imagery Zumas uses so cleverly. In fact it's almost not about the plot at all, instead about the things that happen in between the major events. How things can either push one to succeed or be such a burden that one can never quite escape from them or the dark shadow they cast over everything. How the actions or opinions of others can imbed themselves so deeply into the subconscious. How encounters with those who were once so intertwined within one's own life, can be so ineffectual.

Through precise placement of words Zumas manages to defamiliarise even the most familiar of things, making the mundane seem so intriguing and new. It's like experiencing everyday life for the first time, over and over again. It's hazy, a world I recognised but saw differently through Quinn's eyes.

Multi-layered, reluctant to give all of itself freely, and smart. Really smart.

[Vin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will try to write this review as a weedwhacker grinds & screams outside my window. Every once in awhile I read a book whose language just fits in my brain like a lightbulb fits in its socket. 'Lolita,' 'A Clockwork Orange,' 'Howl,' to name a few. This book had the same effect. And on top of the words fitting like little synapse mittens, there were also these perks:
1) The family in the book is outlined thusly at the start: "The middle child felt wholly a girl. The youngest wanted to be a girl because his sisters were. The oldest hovered between boy and girl, both, neither."

2) The family is synesthesiac. They hear colors. Numbers have gender. Etc. This is true for me too.

3) The narrator does not call people 'people'--she calls them 'sparks' or 'sparklers.'

4) The Ides of February.

5) Octy.

So, yeah, that's all I can think of with the weedwhacker nearby...

[Diane Yannick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. I found this book absolutely stunning. I was disturbed, felt Quinn's pain, wanted to escape at times but couldn't. A lot of the imagery was grotesque but never just for shock value. I loved the way the story was told in a nonlinear, cryptic way. If you need to know exactly what is happening at all times in a novel, run away from this one. If you're willing to allow characters and story to unfold and let you figure out what you want to make of it, grab this book and expect to finish it in less than two days. This is a book I will not soon forget. Poetic, enticing, much more than any summary you can read.

Thank you Powells for picking this as your Indiespensable book. I would not have found it on my own.

[Kasey Jueds · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book blew me away. So interesting to read it shortly after I finished The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets--which, on some level, does similar amazing and exciting things with language. But The Listeners feels so much more successful: like an organic whole rather than a jumble of rather confused parts. At the sentence level, it's startling and gorgeous and strange; I haven't read anything else that uses words the way The Listeners does. And at the character and plot level, it's also strange (in a wonderful way), moving, sometimes funny, often very very sad, and, finally, believably redemptive. Thanks so much, Erica, for recommending this! It's the second book from Tin House I've read and loved this year (the first was Glaciers, by Alexis M. Smith).

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

We've got good, solid writing here. The sibling relationship was interesting and unique and I loved the little snippets of childhood conversations. But the ending? It felt a little like, Mehhhhh, how do I end this? And it ended kind of happily? But I didn't really think it should? (It wasn't 100% happy but you know what I mean if you read it.) I feel like the author started something...a story about life tragedies and how they shape us, started not even with a solid idea but just a feeling to writing about that but then...didn't know how the hell to write a full novel with a complete arc and everything. It would have been stronger as a short story. Sorry, Leni Zumas! I really wanted to like it.

Hmm, my review is kind of scattered but that sort of fits the book, so.

[Skyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know why I chose this one, but once again (like every book I seem to read this year - perhaps it's just confirmation bias...) the subject of this book is about the unexpected death of a young sibling, and the main character dealing with that and other things throughout her life. So of course it meant the subject was one I could relate to, and I could easily empathize with the narrator.

The writing was terrific. Usually I don't like a writing-whirlwind of sentence structure and timelines, but I enjoyed it in this case. All over the place in a smart way.

Also, I think this was the first time I read about periods in a female POV - and it's kinda a major theme in this book. So that's fun, period metaphors, yey!

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally, some magic. I haven't read a book this magic since Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Leni Zumas' dream-like book is lucid enough to put you in the reality of her characters and plot, but with sentences and prose that glimmer in the subtle ways of our unconscious world. The Listeners tells the story of a tragedy of our tribes - family and friends - wrestling with demons imagined and real, and forging a path forward despite yourself and the obstacles of the past. This is a beautiful novel. Read it.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this a few days ago and am still trying to think of how best to describe it. It is heart wrenching and tender, vulgar and gory all at once. It is a very good description of a sister's version of grief and life after losing her younger sister. It's about being lost, and delving into the dark stuff in life - sex, drugs, rock and roll, death, denial, detachment, disorders - that you usually don't want to think or talk about, let alone read about. It's a beautifully written book that is definitely not for the faint of heart.

[L.Mo. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating how the author pulls the story together like a quilt, made up of different, sometimes clashing pieces. If you like books where you get inside the head of a character who is mentally or emotionally outside the norm, such as Motherless Brooklyn or The Catcher in the Rye, you will probably like this book.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very fine. Tricky narrative and spiky language. I felt like I was assembling something by matching colored wire with colored wire , which was extremely satisfying, even though it turned out I was building a bomb. A very weird and powerful book.

[David Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book a while back and I forgot to review it. It is amazing. If you like stories with linear narratives or memoirish exposition, it's not for you. But if you like beautiful, complex, artfully-crafted storytelling, buy it. One of my favorite novels of the last ten years.

[Elle Klock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leni Zumas is a magician with words. This novel was every bit as alarming, haunting, and chewy as Red Clocks. She examines the feminine and bodily possession in an honest and brutal manner. I am completely buzzing from that ride.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes when you REALLY like a book, it is impossible to explain why, and that's true for The Listeners. A great read, highly recommended.

[Denise Mullins · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are frustrated by narratives comprised of disjointed stream-of-conscious rambles which heavily rely on overloads of metaphoric language while creating multiple names for characters, this may not be the book for you. However, if you can persevere and stick with it, you may find yourself continually reflecting upon a protagonist, who- although irredeemably flawed- will become all too real and unforgettable.
Quinn, a thirtysomething synesthetic suffering from survivor guilt and “Almost Famous” Syndrome, is not only manipulative and self-absorbed but totally insensitive to those who share memories of a mutual tragedy. As her self-destructive tendencies continue to mount, she shows no sense of remorse as she lies, cajoles, and connives to meet her immediate needs. In fact, she seems hell bent on destroying those around her who might have a chance at attaining any chance of stability in their lives.
Although Quinn’s tale is relayed in a convoluted and cryptic style to conceal her most egregious actions until the final pages, I feel this reveals Leni Zumas’s brilliance. Even after reading countless instances involving this wretched person, when confronted with the true scope of Quinn’s actions, I was stunned and sickened. The author’s ability to so cleverly and duplicitously keep this hidden, while creating a character who remains haunted while haunting me ranks as a book worth the effort to read it.

[Isaiah · Rating 4 out of 5]

To see more reviews check out MI Book Reviews.

So I grabbed this book just because the author that had a last name that started with Z and there was an octopus on the cover. High criteria was made clearly.

So I knew nothing of this book or anything about the author. I do however know that this was a good choice, maybe, I am still lost. I read this book where nothing happened, but everything happened. It was a complete mind fuck type story. Most of the plot happened in the past and was heavily alluded to. The current plot was just the ramifications of what happened when the main character experienced.

Just the whole situation of how her little sister died messed with me. It is still messing with me. When I first read it I had to put the book down and I couldn’t read for a few days. It was intense, but I also felt very distant and removed from the situation since it happened in the past and it didn’t quite register as having happened. It was just beautifully written and I really want to read more by this author now. The mind games that were played were excellent.

I would love to read more about what happened when she was in the band, but I also feel like the story was fully told. While I want more details, the story feels complete. A lot of the book had me feeling two conflicting things. I just can’t get over that. This book was just amazing. I really want to read it again and again.

[Hornet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I located this book via a process I like to call the customers-who-bought-this-item-also-bought method; intent on avoiding choice paralysis, I 1) navigated to the Goodreads page of In The House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods (aka - my favorite book in the world), & 2) chose something from the readers-who-enjoyed-this-book-also-enjoyed (or - an alternate name for the method described above, which was born on Amazon).

Then: I finished this book in two sittings. (Because it was great.)

The protagonist is a middle-aged woman whose growth has been stunted (in part) by guilt & trauma. This book is surreal in a vivid, visceral way; it's unique in both its premise & its delivery; it has a wild-caught feel to it, in the sense that nothing about it feels cheap or mass-produced, in the sense that it feels genuine, from the first page to the last. The prose is decadent but well-crafted. Literary & rich.

If you enjoyed this book, you might also enjoy Matt Bell's masterpiece (noted above). Having read & loved both, I certainly agree that the two belong in a list together.

[Katya · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at page 144.

I'm so torn on this book. There's something curious and disquieting about it, a compulsion that urged me to return to it after I set it down even though I was not enjoying reading it while I was reading it. The premise of Quinn's world intrigued me, but the actions (or rather, inaction) of the characters ultimately left me unfulfilled.

Another reviewer described the writing as "MFA-y" which to me is very apt. Zumas is clearly a talented writer, but this debut struck me as showboating, an all-too-self-aware linguistic campaign of 'look what I can do!' that was meant to impress but instead irritated. Quinn's inner voice - referring to her parents as Mert and Fod, calling young hipster fans 'sparks', having a child say "I will do you a mischief" - felt overwrought with quirk.

Ultimately, Zumas's literary cartwheels and Quinn's lethargic crawl through her life led me to abandon this book. I am curious as to how it ends, but I can't bring myself to actually find out.