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The Listeners
Fans of The Power will love this addictive novel’ Stylist
A masterful speculative novel exploring the fine lines between faith, conspiracy, and mania in contemporary America.
While lying in bed next to her husband one night, Claire Devon hears a low hum that he cannot. And, it seems, no one else can either. This innocuous noise begins causing Claire headaches, nosebleeds, insomnia, gradually upsetting the balance of her life, though no obvious source or medical cause can be found. When she discovers that a student of hers can also hear the hum, the two strike up an unlikely and intimate friendship. Finding themselves increasingly isolated from their families and colleagues, they fall in with a disparate group of neighbours who also perceive the sound. What starts as a neighbourhood self-help group gradually transforms into something far more extreme and with far-reaching, devastating consequences.
The Listeners is an exhilarating and erotic novel exploring the seduction of the wild and unknowable, the human search for the transcendent, the rise of conspiracy culture in the West, and the desire for community and connection in our increasingly polarised times.
A masterful speculative novel exploring the fine lines between faith, conspiracy, and mania in contemporary America.
While lying in bed next to her husband one night, Claire Devon hears a low hum that he cannot. And, it seems, no one else can either. This innocuous noise begins causing Claire headaches, nosebleeds, insomnia, gradually upsetting the balance of her life, though no obvious source or medical cause can be found. When she discovers that a student of hers can also hear the hum, the two strike up an unlikely and intimate friendship. Finding themselves increasingly isolated from their families and colleagues, they fall in with a disparate group of neighbours who also perceive the sound. What starts as a neighbourhood self-help group gradually transforms into something far more extreme and with far-reaching, devastating consequences.
The Listeners is an exhilarating and erotic novel exploring the seduction of the wild and unknowable, the human search for the transcendent, the rise of conspiracy culture in the West, and the desire for community and connection in our increasingly polarised times.
304 pages, Paperback
First published July 8, 2021
112 people are currently reading
6547 people want to read
About the author
Jordan Tannahill
26 books125 followersJordan Tannahill is a Canadian novelist and playwright based in London.
His debut novel, Liminal, won France's 2021 Prix des Jeunes Libraires. His second novel, The Listeners, was a Canadian bestseller, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Giller Prize.
Tannahill is the author of several plays, and the book of essays, Theatre of the Unimpressed.
In 2019, CBC Arts named Tannahill as one of sixty-nine LGBTQ Canadians, living or deceased, who has shaped the country's history.
His debut novel, Liminal, won France's 2021 Prix des Jeunes Libraires. His second novel, The Listeners, was a Canadian bestseller, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Giller Prize.
Tannahill is the author of several plays, and the book of essays, Theatre of the Unimpressed.
In 2019, CBC Arts named Tannahill as one of sixty-nine LGBTQ Canadians, living or deceased, who has shaped the country's history.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 621 reviews
July 16, 2021
So, what’s the buzz on this book?
Or, should I say the “HUM”?
One night, Claire Devon realizes that she is hearing a constant low hum that won’t go away. Her husband Paul doesn’t hear it. Neither does her daughter, Ashley.
Tests rule out anything “medical” so friends and her family begin to question her mental health, making Claire feel frustrated and alone. Finally, one of her students, Kyle, shares with her that he can hear it too.
Eventually they track down others, and begin to turn towards the group and it’s beliefs, and away from their own families who do not share their views. They embrace each other and want to learn to TUNE INTO the resonance that only they can hear.
I was intrigued for the first 25% and was HOPING for a story like ANY of those that M. Night Shyamalan gives us, or one like John Krasinski’s “A Quiet Place” (2018). I thought I would be reading a sci-fi/ horror tale.
What I got was a story exploring religion, conspiracy theories and how extreme beliefs can tear apart families and neighbors with devastating and often violent consequences.
NOT FOR ME
I get enough of THAT on the news.
Thank You to 4th Estate for my gifted copy! It was my pleasure to offer a candid review.
This book is available now.
Or, should I say the “HUM”?
One night, Claire Devon realizes that she is hearing a constant low hum that won’t go away. Her husband Paul doesn’t hear it. Neither does her daughter, Ashley.
Tests rule out anything “medical” so friends and her family begin to question her mental health, making Claire feel frustrated and alone. Finally, one of her students, Kyle, shares with her that he can hear it too.
Eventually they track down others, and begin to turn towards the group and it’s beliefs, and away from their own families who do not share their views. They embrace each other and want to learn to TUNE INTO the resonance that only they can hear.
I was intrigued for the first 25% and was HOPING for a story like ANY of those that M. Night Shyamalan gives us, or one like John Krasinski’s “A Quiet Place” (2018). I thought I would be reading a sci-fi/ horror tale.
What I got was a story exploring religion, conspiracy theories and how extreme beliefs can tear apart families and neighbors with devastating and often violent consequences.
NOT FOR ME
I get enough of THAT on the news.
Thank You to 4th Estate for my gifted copy! It was my pleasure to offer a candid review.
This book is available now.
May 4, 2022
3.5 "thought provoking, intense, not quite there" stars !!!
Runner Up-2021 READ WHERE i WISH I WAS EDITOR AWARD
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and HarperCollins Canada for an e-copy. I am providing my honest review. This will be released in the latter part of August 2021.
A middle aged high school teacher named Clare (in suburban Texas) has written a first person account of her recollections with the "hum"(an unrelenting sound), her fall from grace, the dissolution of her family and her intense collaboration with neighbors in utilizing this sound to attain spiritual nirvana. She also experiences an intense attachment with a teenage boy throughout the narrative.
Mr. Tannahill (who is an award winning playwright and author) has written a compelling and intense novel questioning the nature of spirituality, mental health, and the quest of fringe groups to offer support and care. The novel has a trajectory that increases in volume and disintegration posing interesting questions and dilemmas to the reader along the way.
I was engrossed throughout and felt that this was a very good and worthwhile read.
This did not reach four star level for a variety of MINOR reasons. One, there was a fair tinge of self consciousness here that I could not shake off. Two, the politics and representation of different types of people felt contrived (lots of pseudo feminism and queer politics that just felt off). Three, and this is just my preference, the lack of quotation marks for dialogue drove me bonkers.
I feel that this book needed a good re-write or two to bring this to the status of a provocative literary sociological thriller. This was well worth reading, nonetheless !! I look forward to reading more by Mr. Tannahill.
Runner Up-2021 READ WHERE i WISH I WAS EDITOR AWARD
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and HarperCollins Canada for an e-copy. I am providing my honest review. This will be released in the latter part of August 2021.
A middle aged high school teacher named Clare (in suburban Texas) has written a first person account of her recollections with the "hum"(an unrelenting sound), her fall from grace, the dissolution of her family and her intense collaboration with neighbors in utilizing this sound to attain spiritual nirvana. She also experiences an intense attachment with a teenage boy throughout the narrative.
Mr. Tannahill (who is an award winning playwright and author) has written a compelling and intense novel questioning the nature of spirituality, mental health, and the quest of fringe groups to offer support and care. The novel has a trajectory that increases in volume and disintegration posing interesting questions and dilemmas to the reader along the way.
I was engrossed throughout and felt that this was a very good and worthwhile read.
This did not reach four star level for a variety of MINOR reasons. One, there was a fair tinge of self consciousness here that I could not shake off. Two, the politics and representation of different types of people felt contrived (lots of pseudo feminism and queer politics that just felt off). Three, and this is just my preference, the lack of quotation marks for dialogue drove me bonkers.
I feel that this book needed a good re-write or two to bring this to the status of a provocative literary sociological thriller. This was well worth reading, nonetheless !! I look forward to reading more by Mr. Tannahill.
July 20, 2021
3.5 stars
This is an interesting exploration of ideas that all coalesce around a simple yet intriguing plot point: what happens when a group of people start hearing a sound that most around them cannot perceive? Out of this kernel, Tannahill has concocted a story that winds together issues of mystery, faith, conviction and which also comments on the kind of vast conspiracy theories that are increasingly part of our social fabric: anti-vaxxers, covid-sceptics and QAnon, while harking back to older ideas of a secret cabal who are secretly manipulating world banks and hold all the power in the world.
What is clever about this book is that we are gradually introduced via a very human narrator, a school teacher in a small American town, whose own scepticism about Christianity gets redirected into a kind of eco-religion. Drawn into a group - are they a cult? what does that even mean? -she finds succour after the breakdown of her own family life - but questions of power, mental health and material explanations for The Hum are both raised and yet not easily dissolved.
Throughout, Claire herself and a few other characters are reading Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, a purposeful clue to this being a book about a clash of ideas, and also raising questions of how life is experienced via the body and mind (spirit, I think, is the term that Mann uses). Concepts of mystery and wonder are raised but evade any kind of definition or explanation - isn't that their defining essence?
So while this is compellingly written, don't go into it expecting a thriller or horror story - Tannahill has wrapped up some profound ideas in something that is masquerading as a page-turner with some dark and also more cartoonish humour along the way.
Thanks to 4th Estate for an ARC via NetGalley
The thing I still struggle to wrap my head around is how did something so small, so innocuous precipitate the complete unravelling of my life. How all of this soul-searching, transcendence, and devastation could begin with a low and barely perceptible sound.
This is an interesting exploration of ideas that all coalesce around a simple yet intriguing plot point: what happens when a group of people start hearing a sound that most around them cannot perceive? Out of this kernel, Tannahill has concocted a story that winds together issues of mystery, faith, conviction and which also comments on the kind of vast conspiracy theories that are increasingly part of our social fabric: anti-vaxxers, covid-sceptics and QAnon, while harking back to older ideas of a secret cabal who are secretly manipulating world banks and hold all the power in the world.
What is clever about this book is that we are gradually introduced via a very human narrator, a school teacher in a small American town, whose own scepticism about Christianity gets redirected into a kind of eco-religion. Drawn into a group - are they a cult? what does that even mean? -she finds succour after the breakdown of her own family life - but questions of power, mental health and material explanations for The Hum are both raised and yet not easily dissolved.
Throughout, Claire herself and a few other characters are reading Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, a purposeful clue to this being a book about a clash of ideas, and also raising questions of how life is experienced via the body and mind (spirit, I think, is the term that Mann uses). Concepts of mystery and wonder are raised but evade any kind of definition or explanation - isn't that their defining essence?
So while this is compellingly written, don't go into it expecting a thriller or horror story - Tannahill has wrapped up some profound ideas in something that is masquerading as a page-turner with some dark and also more cartoonish humour along the way.
Thanks to 4th Estate for an ARC via NetGalley
January 5, 2023
It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on violence, psychological distress, the suggestion of sexually performed acts by a minor, intimate relationship between an authority figure & a minor, dated & derogatory terminology, suicidal ideations, self-harm of a minor, & others.
In the same way that burnt toast takes away from the desire & hopes held in the pallet of the consumer so too did this book strip me of the ability to regard it with any level of seriousness. The impossibility that this book was anything other than satire leads me to feel a level of comedic humour otherwise unachievable by a story that is brimmed with sensitive & morose subject matters.
On Sequoia Crescent there lives a family that appears as any Play-Doh family might; a wife, a husband, a daughter, & a large expensive home wrought with the pebble-dense thoughts of the inhabitants. The story that follows the introduction to these characters is narrated by the matriarch, Claire, as she seeks to leverage some sympathy from her demise which she brought on to herself by remaining the epitome of pretentious, imbecilic, & vapid.
In the face of this story, one might ask themselves what the appealing feature of such a dementedly irritating plot might be & I should like to highlight that I came across this book while looking to read stories written by Canadian authors. I have a great appreciation for the bizarre, especially in literature, & therefore felt that this book would be right up my alley. When Claire begins to hear a hum she goes insane, in the literal medical meaning of the word. I was intrigued by the topic & admit to having high hopes for this book.
I hesitate to be outwardly snarky in this review because I acknowledge that there is a chance that I am not understanding the book or what the author sought to achieve by writing this story. I pride myself in always approaching a review with the class that is due when critiquing a piece of literature; being someone who revels in the practice of reading, the book world at large, & holds the authors that I have loved in very high esteem, I should not want to come across as ignorant in my sarcasm of any book, even one such as this. Yet, while reading this book I found myself laughing outwardly, as though what was being written were truly the most hilarious thing I had ever read. I do not think the author intended for the discussions surrounding The Hum (as they call it) to be taken lightly & this leads me to question the actual intention of the writer.
When a character drones endlessly about topics that have been deemed politically correct—the acceptance of gender, sexual attraction, fashion choices, cultural variations, etc.—in such a way as to leave me feeling irritated, I am not led to believe that these subject matters were broached with the intention of shedding light on the positive performance adopted by the character. For example, Claire is a woman who reads as morbidly stupid. Her inner monologues express her high esteem of herself & that her passion for literature is what allowed the students that she teaches to read books that were not simply written by White men going on about the same subjects as they always write about. What does this mean? How are we to interpret this? I assume that what Claire might have meant was that she was well-read & sought to include literature within the curriculum that broaden the horizons of every student. Yet, we never see her do that. Instead, she employed a speech pattern that saw her diminishing the efforts of a specific group in the hopes of appearing more accepting & forward-thinking.
One could dismiss William Wordsworth for being, physically, who he was or one could accept that the man had an exceedingly superb talent for words while simultaneously highlighting any other poet who showcased a talent like no other. What I am saying is that Claire’s character was written as outwardly shallow. It is no secret that many school systems have put forth a specific set of books within their curriculums while leaving many pondering their worth. I, for one, cannot call to mind any of the plot from Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” (1953) yet it was taught to me by a wonderful teacher—the book did nothing for me. There have been ample books that I have come across in my later years that have moved me beyond recognition & which also contain stunning reflections of society, that I did not learn about in school. All this to say, one needs to sharpen one’s argument if one is seeking to put oneself forth as the pillar for all literary change while simultaneously acknowledging that a single teacher does not necessarily have the power to alter a school-district-imposed curriculum.
This is but one example of Claire’s character seeking to put herself apart from the others—whomsoever these ‘others’ might be. Her approach does not come across as authentic, kind, or intelligent. One can acknowledge that change needs take place while also acknowledging that much of the general population has been amplifying such change without shouting it from the rooftops, as Claire does in her inner monologues. Other examples of this behaviour are seen when Claire interacts with her daughter or presents reflections on her relationship with her daughter. There seems to be no room for anyone else to have any experiences that may reach the heights of Claire’s experiences with regard to Ashley. No one loves their child as much as Claire, no one will go to batt for their child as Claire would, & no one is as malleable as Claire, point-blank.
Does this leave room for the reader to adopt sympathy toward Claire? The introductory section of the book sees Claire reflect on the turn of events that led her to be where she is now; the loss of the confidence of those she loves & the reputation she upheld in her community. Yet, she grants the reader no opportunity to believe her. Claire spends every moment of her written recollections telling the reader that she, essentially, hated her life. She didn’t intend to get pregnant but, she is the best mother in the world. She didn’t want to have a house, but her house is the grandest & most stunning in all the wealthy suburban neighbourhoods. She didn’t want to be a teacher, but she is the smartest & most forward-thinking teacher in every school district.
How am I meant to feel any level of sympathy for a character whom I know is going to be experiencing physical distinctions from the majority of the populace, so much so that her life is critically altered to no return? There is no instance in this book where I felt that any of what happened was something I should care about. The same can be said for every other character save Paul, Claire’s husband. The middle section of the book saw many people from the community gathering together in the hopes of taking part in a circle-jerk in which their own hypotheses of The Hum were approved & congratulated. Though the author writes at length about the discussions that these characters had, nothing is actually said. Every character that sits in Howard & Jo’s home could be speaking to themselves alone; conversations are shared words, ideas & dialogue, these characters do not partake in that.
What was the purpose of having so many people in such a short book be so one-dimensional? Not a single character proved to be a well-rounded individual, such as one the reader might recognize from their own lives. To ensure that a story is believable one must have at least a single character that distinguishes themselves from the gloom of the backdrop. Did I care when Tom was telling Claire to stop talking about her personal experiences so that they could attempt to pinpoint where The Hum was originating? No. Did I care when Claire yelled at Tom? No. I did care to hear about Howard’s theory & I did care for there to be discussions that could advance the plot yet, neither of these was fully granted the opportunity to bloom.
Was the intention to present a satirical story in which the main character showcases every demeaning characteristic of a person that resides comfortably on a planet unbeknownst to us all? If this book had put forth the main character with some gumption, some depth to her person & perhaps a personality that did not make me feel eager to see her downfall, there might have been something going for this story. Where things stand, the author held a plot that was intriguing yet was unable to fulfill the attempt at writing a story to coincide with a horror in a way that saw it succeed.
I remain filled to the brim with questions yet, I care not for answers. Claire sees her life return to normal without much consequence. People died but she simply walks home to the husband she treats like rotting trash so that he can tend to her as he has always done. The majority of the characters in this book are spoiled beyond repair & this renders the book banal. Claire’s experience being the outlier in her home where she treats the other two (2) people living there like accessories to her rise to fame, is ridiculous.
Why should I care about developing sentiments of sorrow for a person who spends their time telling me that she doesn’t really like her husband as a person & whom I see write about how they performed aggression against their spouse when they did not hear the same hum as she did? What is redeeming about this person? This leads me to my initial points; perhaps I have not understood something innate, something very important within the plot & the presentation of this book. Perhaps, everything I expressed was meant to come across this way.
Regardless, I did not enjoy this book. The characters were superfluous, privileged puddles of mud, deigned in a plot that upheld the grandiose ideologies embedded in the intricately subpar writing style of a person whose intentions I am unable to grasp.
In the same way that burnt toast takes away from the desire & hopes held in the pallet of the consumer so too did this book strip me of the ability to regard it with any level of seriousness. The impossibility that this book was anything other than satire leads me to feel a level of comedic humour otherwise unachievable by a story that is brimmed with sensitive & morose subject matters.
On Sequoia Crescent there lives a family that appears as any Play-Doh family might; a wife, a husband, a daughter, & a large expensive home wrought with the pebble-dense thoughts of the inhabitants. The story that follows the introduction to these characters is narrated by the matriarch, Claire, as she seeks to leverage some sympathy from her demise which she brought on to herself by remaining the epitome of pretentious, imbecilic, & vapid.
In the face of this story, one might ask themselves what the appealing feature of such a dementedly irritating plot might be & I should like to highlight that I came across this book while looking to read stories written by Canadian authors. I have a great appreciation for the bizarre, especially in literature, & therefore felt that this book would be right up my alley. When Claire begins to hear a hum she goes insane, in the literal medical meaning of the word. I was intrigued by the topic & admit to having high hopes for this book.
I hesitate to be outwardly snarky in this review because I acknowledge that there is a chance that I am not understanding the book or what the author sought to achieve by writing this story. I pride myself in always approaching a review with the class that is due when critiquing a piece of literature; being someone who revels in the practice of reading, the book world at large, & holds the authors that I have loved in very high esteem, I should not want to come across as ignorant in my sarcasm of any book, even one such as this. Yet, while reading this book I found myself laughing outwardly, as though what was being written were truly the most hilarious thing I had ever read. I do not think the author intended for the discussions surrounding The Hum (as they call it) to be taken lightly & this leads me to question the actual intention of the writer.
When a character drones endlessly about topics that have been deemed politically correct—the acceptance of gender, sexual attraction, fashion choices, cultural variations, etc.—in such a way as to leave me feeling irritated, I am not led to believe that these subject matters were broached with the intention of shedding light on the positive performance adopted by the character. For example, Claire is a woman who reads as morbidly stupid. Her inner monologues express her high esteem of herself & that her passion for literature is what allowed the students that she teaches to read books that were not simply written by White men going on about the same subjects as they always write about. What does this mean? How are we to interpret this? I assume that what Claire might have meant was that she was well-read & sought to include literature within the curriculum that broaden the horizons of every student. Yet, we never see her do that. Instead, she employed a speech pattern that saw her diminishing the efforts of a specific group in the hopes of appearing more accepting & forward-thinking.
One could dismiss William Wordsworth for being, physically, who he was or one could accept that the man had an exceedingly superb talent for words while simultaneously highlighting any other poet who showcased a talent like no other. What I am saying is that Claire’s character was written as outwardly shallow. It is no secret that many school systems have put forth a specific set of books within their curriculums while leaving many pondering their worth. I, for one, cannot call to mind any of the plot from Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” (1953) yet it was taught to me by a wonderful teacher—the book did nothing for me. There have been ample books that I have come across in my later years that have moved me beyond recognition & which also contain stunning reflections of society, that I did not learn about in school. All this to say, one needs to sharpen one’s argument if one is seeking to put oneself forth as the pillar for all literary change while simultaneously acknowledging that a single teacher does not necessarily have the power to alter a school-district-imposed curriculum.
This is but one example of Claire’s character seeking to put herself apart from the others—whomsoever these ‘others’ might be. Her approach does not come across as authentic, kind, or intelligent. One can acknowledge that change needs take place while also acknowledging that much of the general population has been amplifying such change without shouting it from the rooftops, as Claire does in her inner monologues. Other examples of this behaviour are seen when Claire interacts with her daughter or presents reflections on her relationship with her daughter. There seems to be no room for anyone else to have any experiences that may reach the heights of Claire’s experiences with regard to Ashley. No one loves their child as much as Claire, no one will go to batt for their child as Claire would, & no one is as malleable as Claire, point-blank.
Does this leave room for the reader to adopt sympathy toward Claire? The introductory section of the book sees Claire reflect on the turn of events that led her to be where she is now; the loss of the confidence of those she loves & the reputation she upheld in her community. Yet, she grants the reader no opportunity to believe her. Claire spends every moment of her written recollections telling the reader that she, essentially, hated her life. She didn’t intend to get pregnant but, she is the best mother in the world. She didn’t want to have a house, but her house is the grandest & most stunning in all the wealthy suburban neighbourhoods. She didn’t want to be a teacher, but she is the smartest & most forward-thinking teacher in every school district.
How am I meant to feel any level of sympathy for a character whom I know is going to be experiencing physical distinctions from the majority of the populace, so much so that her life is critically altered to no return? There is no instance in this book where I felt that any of what happened was something I should care about. The same can be said for every other character save Paul, Claire’s husband. The middle section of the book saw many people from the community gathering together in the hopes of taking part in a circle-jerk in which their own hypotheses of The Hum were approved & congratulated. Though the author writes at length about the discussions that these characters had, nothing is actually said. Every character that sits in Howard & Jo’s home could be speaking to themselves alone; conversations are shared words, ideas & dialogue, these characters do not partake in that.
What was the purpose of having so many people in such a short book be so one-dimensional? Not a single character proved to be a well-rounded individual, such as one the reader might recognize from their own lives. To ensure that a story is believable one must have at least a single character that distinguishes themselves from the gloom of the backdrop. Did I care when Tom was telling Claire to stop talking about her personal experiences so that they could attempt to pinpoint where The Hum was originating? No. Did I care when Claire yelled at Tom? No. I did care to hear about Howard’s theory & I did care for there to be discussions that could advance the plot yet, neither of these was fully granted the opportunity to bloom.
Was the intention to present a satirical story in which the main character showcases every demeaning characteristic of a person that resides comfortably on a planet unbeknownst to us all? If this book had put forth the main character with some gumption, some depth to her person & perhaps a personality that did not make me feel eager to see her downfall, there might have been something going for this story. Where things stand, the author held a plot that was intriguing yet was unable to fulfill the attempt at writing a story to coincide with a horror in a way that saw it succeed.
I remain filled to the brim with questions yet, I care not for answers. Claire sees her life return to normal without much consequence. People died but she simply walks home to the husband she treats like rotting trash so that he can tend to her as he has always done. The majority of the characters in this book are spoiled beyond repair & this renders the book banal. Claire’s experience being the outlier in her home where she treats the other two (2) people living there like accessories to her rise to fame, is ridiculous.
Why should I care about developing sentiments of sorrow for a person who spends their time telling me that she doesn’t really like her husband as a person & whom I see write about how they performed aggression against their spouse when they did not hear the same hum as she did? What is redeeming about this person? This leads me to my initial points; perhaps I have not understood something innate, something very important within the plot & the presentation of this book. Perhaps, everything I expressed was meant to come across this way.
Regardless, I did not enjoy this book. The characters were superfluous, privileged puddles of mud, deigned in a plot that upheld the grandiose ideologies embedded in the intricately subpar writing style of a person whose intentions I am unable to grasp.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 9, 2021
Tom, the Earth is making us aware of itself in the most extraordinary way. And you can choose to listen or can choose not to. But I am listening. Because I have been given the gift of being able to. And so have you.
The first line of Jordan Tannahill’s Giller Prize-nominated The Listeners is: The chances are that you have, at some point, stumbled upon the viral meme of me screaming naked in front of a bank of news cameras, and if nothing else, learning what brings a suburban wife/mother/English teacher to the point of screaming naked in public was an intriguing hook that kept me turning the pages. Along the way, this gets deeply philosophical about our times — about the conflict between belief and disbelief as it concerns faith, women’s health, conspiracy theories, etc. — and Tannahill makes this equally entertaining and thought-provoking. I like reading fiction in an attempt to learn about how others live, and if I have a complaint here, it’s that Tannahill writes from the POV of an American woman (when he is neither American nor a woman; this is Tannahill’s imagined narrative of how such a person lives), but as I can understand that his particular plot would be experienced most intensely by this particular American woman (at least as how I imagine that woman’s life to be), this perspective was only mildly distracting to me. An overall fine read, rounded up to four stars.
The thing I still struggle to wrap my head around is how did something so small, so innocuous precipitate the complete unravelling of my life. How all of this soul-searching, transcendence, and devastation could begin with a low and barely perceptible sound.
One night, as she was getting ready to fall asleep, forty-year-old Claire Devon first heard The Hum; a super low frequency, diffuse droning that seems to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. No one else in her circle of family or friends can hear it, and as Claire becomes sleep-deprived and made to feel a bit crazy, she is relieved when first a student in her class and then a neighbourhood group come forward as people who can also hear The Hum. Despite knowing how dangerous it is to be seen fraternising with a student outside of class (not to mention texting and offering consoling hugs), Claire can’t help but join seventeen-year-old Luke in his efforts to track down the source of the noise; and when they discover the neighbourhood group and joining it causes estrangement from their families, the reader has to wonder: at what point does a group of people, sleep-deprived and isolated, joining together to seek transcendence, cease to be a support group and becomes a cult? The choices that Claire makes along the way are credible for her character, but like when you’re watching a horror movie, you can’t help but repeatedly shout out, “No! Why are you doing that?!”
Until that evening and my conversation with Ashley on the staircase, I don’t think I fully grasped the extent to which hysteria was a psychic wound that we as women still bore; a wound inflicted from centuries of our symptoms, our instincts about our own bodies, our pleasures and afflictions, always being the first to be discounted and discredited, even by other women. Even by our own daughters, as the case may be. It was a wound that we still carried, because we could, at any moment, have an entire history called upon to silence us in a word, in an instant.
The Listeners is, at heart, a piece of Millennial feminist fiction. When Claire first hears The Hum, her husband wants to be supportive, but eventually pressures her to seek help; to medicate and get therapy. Claire makes a point of telling us that she became an English teacher in order to counter the patriarchal, homophobic, white male literary canon that’s taught to high school students. She tells us that she was a polyamorous riot grrrl before she met her husband; she’s sex positive enough to have given her daughter a vibrator for her fourteenth birthday; when she first meets the others in the neighbourhood group, she fields “some pretty strong toxic masculinity vibes” from one guy, an aging couple were “definitely a bit OK Boomer”. In this first meeting, it’s noted that the men are dominating the conversation (a retired academic mansplains what he thinks is causing the noise, the old man wants to write cranky letters to the city, the ex-military guy wants to talk Deep State), whereas the women are relieved to finally have others to talk to about their personal experiences (they are listeners). When Claire is alone at home one night and thinks a stranger is in her yard, she tells us, “I don’t think anyone who isn’t a woman living on her own can fully appreciate the amount of time we spend imagining and fearing this exact scenario.” And again, as Tannahill isn’t “a woman living on her own”, I was brought out of the story by him telling me this; by his telling me what it’s like to be a woman going through this entire experience.
But this is about more than feminism. In an early scene, we learn that Claire is a staunch atheist, pleased to have saved her husband from his fundamentalist Christian upbringing, but Paul finds himself, in middle age, being drawn back to the faith of his youth. When Claire, with her group, discovers a way of tuning into The Hum, of finding a way to transcend reality in a way that hints at something more than base materialism, she finds herself intensely challenged; apparently losing one’s disbelief can be as traumatic as losing one’s faith. And the ex-military man introduces some credible conspiracy theories about what could be causing The Hum: if the Deep State isn’t actually causing it, you can be sure they know about it and are monitoring this group (the government are also listeners). As this story is set in Texas (at least I think it is, Paul is from Amarillo), I was put in mind of Waco and the Branch Davidians; and we know how that ended. In Tannahill’s last novel, what I would call the underrated Liminal, he wrote:
And it's of course considered obscene, to transcend our bodies — whether through sex, drugs, or a suicide belt. For the self to consciously cleave itself apart from the body. There's a horror in having agency in the act. It destabilizes that which is thought to be fixed: that only God or the universe or fate can unfix these two parts of our being. That sacred union. Our body, the temple. And in that moment I understood “sacred” as belonging to a language of limits, a word which demarcated boundaries we were not prepared to cross for fear of destabilizing the accepted order, for fear of realizing how far our bodies could actually stretch, transform, how much pleasure they could hold, how extreme they could be made, how fluid and porous they really were, because to realize those potentials might have meant remaking all the containers — physical, social, political –— that held the world in place.
The Listeners would appear to be another way of examining this same theme, but more rooted in reality than Liminal was. And for the questions it raises and explores, I found this to be a totally worthwhile read.
July 27, 2021
I fear this one is not for me. For a start, I always hate when an author decides not to use speech marks - do they really think it makes the book more readable or more profound? If so, I beg to differ. Secondly, some of the scenes go on for ever, going round and round in circles full of repetitive and uninteresting dialogue, like the first meeting of the group where a bunch of strangers pour out their intimate secrets to each other within about five minutes, as you do. At one point, one of the characters complains that he hadn't come for a group therapy session, and I found myself nodding vigorously in agreement - nor had I. I disliked the narrator, Claire, intensely - one of these narcissistic, introspective, self-obsessed, whiny people that seem to be the "heroes" of too many books these days. But even Claire isn't as revoltingly egotistical as her horrid daughter - as good an argument for celibacy as I've come across. The other characters either failed to impinge on me at all, or failed to convince me when they did.
When I realised that I hadn't picked the book up in nearly a week, I decided it was time to call it quits. I made it to 46%. I'm giving it two stars because I didn't hate it. I simply found it uninteresting.
When I realised that I hadn't picked the book up in nearly a week, I decided it was time to call it quits. I made it to 46%. I'm giving it two stars because I didn't hate it. I simply found it uninteresting.
October 14, 2021
I LOVED THIS ONE (!!!!) What a totally unexpected ride. This is one of those books that keeps on getting better and better. What would happen if one day you heard a hum that no one else was able to hear and you had to learn to live this affliction? This book takes a clever and gutsy approach on tackling huge topics such as mental health, mental illness stigma, herd mentality, conspiracy theories, political propaganda, cults, religion, atheism, new age thinking, fake news, even anti-vaccination. Whew. This book is wild. It’s uneasy, philosophical, thought-provoking, terrifying, and thrilling. Tannahill wrote a book that on the surface isn’t about any of those things but it really all about those things. The climax is riveting stuff. My only gripe is the epilogue; I wish it was removed, it diluted the potency of this story. Oh my, I’m going to be thinking about this one for a long time.
November 6, 2021
I'm just tired of male authors using feminist tropes to explain the hardships people who identify as women face on a day-to-day basis. It became harder and harder to sympathize with the group of "hummers" as the members all became closer to caricatures, and the conversations with the daughter were painful (the conversations where Ashley uses slurs against the queer community only to defend herself by digging an even deeper hole comes to mind). These aspects weren't necessary to the plot, and ultimately only served to suggest that the character's alienation was their own doing rather than focusing on the more interesting aspect of society turning on them.
April 10, 2021
The Listeners was terrific and not at all what I was expecting from the blurb (in a good way) – I immediately engaged with Claire, who we will follow along with in this novel as she goes through a life changing experience.
I’m going to tag this as “Literary weird” which is a compliment- the writing is beautifully immersive and the story being told is unique in perspective. It is a family drama with added strange, as various people in a community start to hear a constant, persistent and oft debilitating hum-derided by friends and family alike, Claire ultimately finds herself involved with a group of people trying desperately to work out what’s going on.
From there on in The Listeners becomes a character study wrapped up in a mystery. Jordan Tannahill draws the intricate relationships cleverly, offering up seemingly inappropriate actions that in the moment feel exactly right. As Claire descends further down the rabbit hole things get intensely disturbing yet also strangely uplifting, the finale is pitched perfectly leaving you with mixed feelings and a sense of melancholy.
I won’t give away intimate plot details but suffice to say it is extraordinarily engaging, a gorgeous and sometimes sad story that will stick with me for a good while to come.
Recommended.
I’m going to tag this as “Literary weird” which is a compliment- the writing is beautifully immersive and the story being told is unique in perspective. It is a family drama with added strange, as various people in a community start to hear a constant, persistent and oft debilitating hum-derided by friends and family alike, Claire ultimately finds herself involved with a group of people trying desperately to work out what’s going on.
From there on in The Listeners becomes a character study wrapped up in a mystery. Jordan Tannahill draws the intricate relationships cleverly, offering up seemingly inappropriate actions that in the moment feel exactly right. As Claire descends further down the rabbit hole things get intensely disturbing yet also strangely uplifting, the finale is pitched perfectly leaving you with mixed feelings and a sense of melancholy.
I won’t give away intimate plot details but suffice to say it is extraordinarily engaging, a gorgeous and sometimes sad story that will stick with me for a good while to come.
Recommended.
July 15, 2021
I really loved the premise of this and the blurbs made it sound like it would live up to its premise, but unfortunately it wasn't for me.
It took me about four days to finish this audiobook; I took it with me everywhere. But after a while, it was less because it was so gripping, and more because I wanted to get to the exciting and disturbing thriller-y part the blurbs had promised me.
It didn't happen. There are large, gaping holes in the plot – the group getting used to Howard's ideas, Claire's struggles with science vs. faith, the developing relationship between Claire and Kyle, the tightening of the group into a family, the erosion of Claire's family and maybe the other "Hummers"'s families? – all developments that I would have loved to hear about, but that were glossed over in favour of desperately long, desperately boring dialogues. There's also just a whole lot "he said", "she asked", "he countered" and "she put her hand to her face to indicate exasperation" that's just absolutely grating to listen to. But I guess what else can you do when you write about people sitting in a room? (...have them not sit in a room maybe? Nobody does anything in this book except sit around having tea and snacks, good god)
I would have loved this to have gone deeper, and to be a bit more subtle, especially about Claire's character.
Deborah Pearson does a pretty great job of reading the audiobook though, even if I wasn't on board with some of the choices she made, and sometimes I wondered if I would've liked Claire more in a different voice. She made her sound memorable though, and her performance was definitely partly why I kept coming back.
It took me about four days to finish this audiobook; I took it with me everywhere. But after a while, it was less because it was so gripping, and more because I wanted to get to the exciting and disturbing thriller-y part the blurbs had promised me.
It didn't happen. There are large, gaping holes in the plot – the group getting used to Howard's ideas, Claire's struggles with science vs. faith, the developing relationship between Claire and Kyle, the tightening of the group into a family, the erosion of Claire's family and maybe the other "Hummers"'s families? – all developments that I would have loved to hear about, but that were glossed over in favour of desperately long, desperately boring dialogues. There's also just a whole lot "he said", "she asked", "he countered" and "she put her hand to her face to indicate exasperation" that's just absolutely grating to listen to. But I guess what else can you do when you write about people sitting in a room? (...have them not sit in a room maybe? Nobody does anything in this book except sit around having tea and snacks, good god)
I would have loved this to have gone deeper, and to be a bit more subtle, especially about Claire's character.
Deborah Pearson does a pretty great job of reading the audiobook though, even if I wasn't on board with some of the choices she made, and sometimes I wondered if I would've liked Claire more in a different voice. She made her sound memorable though, and her performance was definitely partly why I kept coming back.
March 14, 2022
Oh geeze I really liked this book. It was such a unique story with many plot layers that kept my brain on high alert. I loved the play between science and faith. I also loved how this story delved into the contrasts between one’s own experience versus how the rest of the world perceives it.
The gist of this literary fiction is about a high school teacher Claire, who one day starts hearing a low hum. Her husband Paul and daughter Ashley can’t hear it and after awhile start to question her sanity. This forces Claire to hide this incessant noise from her family, friends and coworkers until Kyle, her 17 year old English student, admits that he also hears the noise. The two then start to form form a close bond, a bond that others will judge and misinterpret. It eventually leads Claire and Kyle to a group of other listeners who can also hear the hum. What is the reality of this noise? What is the truth of this group of listeners? The trajectory of events leads to disastrous consequences.
There is no predicting how this story will end. It kept me invested and eager to know where it was going and what would happen. The audio performance was phenomenal! The book is written as a book written by Claire in first person. It was a clever way to tell the story and gave it an element of authenticity.
It lost a star only because the editing could’ve been a little tighter. There were tangents that led nowhere and caused the plot to stall. However, I totally recommend this book to readers looking for something different. There would be lots to discuss at a book club.
The gist of this literary fiction is about a high school teacher Claire, who one day starts hearing a low hum. Her husband Paul and daughter Ashley can’t hear it and after awhile start to question her sanity. This forces Claire to hide this incessant noise from her family, friends and coworkers until Kyle, her 17 year old English student, admits that he also hears the noise. The two then start to form form a close bond, a bond that others will judge and misinterpret. It eventually leads Claire and Kyle to a group of other listeners who can also hear the hum. What is the reality of this noise? What is the truth of this group of listeners? The trajectory of events leads to disastrous consequences.
There is no predicting how this story will end. It kept me invested and eager to know where it was going and what would happen. The audio performance was phenomenal! The book is written as a book written by Claire in first person. It was a clever way to tell the story and gave it an element of authenticity.
It lost a star only because the editing could’ve been a little tighter. There were tangents that led nowhere and caused the plot to stall. However, I totally recommend this book to readers looking for something different. There would be lots to discuss at a book club.
July 31, 2021
The Listeners is very well written and explores some interesting areas and ideas, but I’m not sure what it added up to in the end.
It’s a good premise: a number of people can hear a permanent hum which is inaudible to most others. It is not clear what its source is and eventually some who can hear it get together to form a sort of support group. Jordan Tannahill then uses this to explore aspects of group dynamics without making glib statements or, indeed, drawing many conclusions at all about what he depicts. His use of Claire as an intelligent and articulate but possibly unreliable narrator works very well for this as we get her subjective experience of the hum and its effect on her, and of her experience in finding others, the group they form and the consequences for her family, career and life as a whole.
It’s well executed and there is a lot of very good depiction and discussion of things like whether the group may be a cult (and what that word may mean), conspiracy theories, how fear and anger may drive people both inside and outside the group, and so on. Tannahill offers no clear answers to anything, which is laudable because there probably are none, but as a result I wasn’t quite sure what the point of the book was. It certainly had some interesting things to say, but in the end I found the nebulousness of it left me grasping for much to take away.
I think I’m glad I read this and I may well continue to think about and digest the book for some time. Three stars would be churlish so I’ve rounded 3.5 up to four, but it’s a qualified recommendation.
(My thanks to 4th Estate for an ARC via NetGalley.)
It’s a good premise: a number of people can hear a permanent hum which is inaudible to most others. It is not clear what its source is and eventually some who can hear it get together to form a sort of support group. Jordan Tannahill then uses this to explore aspects of group dynamics without making glib statements or, indeed, drawing many conclusions at all about what he depicts. His use of Claire as an intelligent and articulate but possibly unreliable narrator works very well for this as we get her subjective experience of the hum and its effect on her, and of her experience in finding others, the group they form and the consequences for her family, career and life as a whole.
It’s well executed and there is a lot of very good depiction and discussion of things like whether the group may be a cult (and what that word may mean), conspiracy theories, how fear and anger may drive people both inside and outside the group, and so on. Tannahill offers no clear answers to anything, which is laudable because there probably are none, but as a result I wasn’t quite sure what the point of the book was. It certainly had some interesting things to say, but in the end I found the nebulousness of it left me grasping for much to take away.
I think I’m glad I read this and I may well continue to think about and digest the book for some time. Three stars would be churlish so I’ve rounded 3.5 up to four, but it’s a qualified recommendation.
(My thanks to 4th Estate for an ARC via NetGalley.)
April 14, 2022
What would you do if you could hear a constant sound, a droning hum, but everyone around you tells you it’s not there? The Listeners explores this and the journey was deeply unsettling.
Themes of gaslighting, mental illness, isolation, obsession, religion, conspiracy theories, grooming and good old fashioned cults. Just some light reading, y’all! All of that packaged within a compulsively readable, almost cinematic, mystery/thriller.
It’s hard to put my finger on the feeling where I absolutely HATE every single decision that Claire, our protagonist, made but I also absolutely empathize with and understand why she made them. It’s a kind of skill that the author has to make you question and challenge your own morals in that way. I hate every single thing Claire does but also can’t help think about whether, if in the same situation, I would have acted in exactly the same way.
This felt philosophical without being preachy. I definitely recommend!
Themes of gaslighting, mental illness, isolation, obsession, religion, conspiracy theories, grooming and good old fashioned cults. Just some light reading, y’all! All of that packaged within a compulsively readable, almost cinematic, mystery/thriller.
It’s hard to put my finger on the feeling where I absolutely HATE every single decision that Claire, our protagonist, made but I also absolutely empathize with and understand why she made them. It’s a kind of skill that the author has to make you question and challenge your own morals in that way. I hate every single thing Claire does but also can’t help think about whether, if in the same situation, I would have acted in exactly the same way.
This felt philosophical without being preachy. I definitely recommend!
October 2, 2021
https://medium.com/@frasersimons/7819...
The intersections Tannahill’s The Listeners, a Giller Prize longlisted book, occupies are almost overwhelming when you stop and consider its ingrained themes.
Powerfully, the novel sets itself up as a memoir of a woman who is retrospectively trying to arrange the moments of her life that turned into a rampant cascade that swept her away from what was her “normal”. There are remarks situated outside of her narrative that reference fictional events. Disclaimers or context that work to give the reader an added sense of suspense and unease simply because it implies with its framing that this is reality.
In a way it is.
Claire Devon is not weak-minded or willed. She, in many ways, holds a leadership position in almost every dynamic she encounters in her town. She’s a teacher who cares. A mentor when needed. Someone who stands up to bullshit rhetoric that is little more than stereotyping and misogyny. But she’s also got an element of everydayness that permeates her life like a nervous tick. Unbidden and unwelcome in an otherwise curated, mostly happy existence is this malaise that she deals with. Nothing is perfect.
But without rhyme or reason, one random evening, she begins to hear the sound of a low hum that throws off her equilibrium. Her tick is now real.
When she discovers one of her students, Kyle, also hears The Hum, the two form a camaraderie that feels beyond friendship (and any other categorization) — and the fiction adopts detective-like undertones.
They chart the town in search of a sound no one, ostensibly, can hear but them. And this obsession, as it becomes, is a catalyst for Claire’s life to morph into a completely different vessel. The shape of which her friends and her husband and daughter cannot make sense of, and so shun her.
Alone together, Claire and Kyle discover a group of people in town who also hear The Hum, and they begin in earnest (and fervor) to tackle this mystery. The interesting thing about this is Claire’s shame rubs off on the reader. When she feels seen, the reader does. The impact of finding an in-group for something so strangely marginalized simultaneously ramps up the suspense — as each group member seems to have a different theory ranging from scientific, or perhaps pseudo-scientific, to conspiracy theories and spirituality.
Claire, meanwhile, is not sleeping.
She tows a line where she is vulnerable and completely contrary to her former self as established, but also more supported and loved; surrounded by people who hear The Hum and believe her unequivocally. Is it healthy? Is it dangerous?
At this point, the book can be examined almost like a prism. You can easily see a particular reading of what occurs only so far until it elicits other thoughts which then collide with one another. You can choose to believe Claire. Or not. Both roads set you down alternate readings. If you do believe her, you then need to pick up the same theories Claire does and twist them about in the hunt for a connection you can label as “correct” or “right”.
It is impossible not to make the connection between her beliefs and others. What is The Hum compared to Him; God, of any stripe or color or flavor?
Perhaps the most horrific thing in this novel is it pointing to how we treat people outside of our socialization — especially clever here because there are no existing (moral or political or otherwise) associations with people who hear The Hum, as with other marginalized identities that our socialization has prompted us to sort already.
The reaction to Claire by her loved ones is similar to people being confronted with anything they don’t understand.
At one point even Claire describes her meeting the others as something similar. It’s as though she lived in one room her whole life and then discovered a door that led to another room. But it’s black and cavernous and terrifying. But she needs to know what is in the other room. Yet the effects on Claire are discernable and troubling. Are they caused by The Hum itself, not sleeping, mental health, being ostracized? What is the relationship between these things, if any?
And because this is all first-person narration by Claire after the fact, there is a component that feels noticeably absent: objectivity. The larger context is not provided outside of Claire, save for her group.
This is where The Listeners really shines.
Passages detailing the dynamics between the characters in their AA-esk meetings are so believable and pungent and tangible that it reaches into that liminal space some readers know and yearn for. Where these granular qualities imbued in a scene transcend; the reader entering a hyper-reality of their own experiences and thoughts and interactions. The text becoming a universal shorthand or bite-sized truth that briefly encapsulates the complexity of people into a consumable form for the reader.
It’s a rare gift hopefully every reader has received.
The suspense that underlies these really beautiful moments between people who share something no one else understands underscores the unique quality this book evokes.
How easy it is to fall out of status with society and with the people who should be best equipped to support you and love you unconditionally. If you do not conform to what is described by society as “normal” you do not get to participate in it. Even though, arguably, all our interactions are performance. If you are out of step you learn what it’s like outside of the dance.
In the time of COVID, this feels particularly prescient and compelling. The Listeners made me think a lot about society and how we interact with one another. About beliefs and their power. About the scope of knowledge, we currently take for granted but continually revise across our lifetimes.
It made me feel really angry about how we treat each other. What we consider good and bad and nourishing or vile.
It is easy to picture a place where all the fallout that comes from Claire hearing The Hum would simply never happen. Maybe there are massive power lines going through a town, towing electricity to a city. There Claire is walking into a school, bumps into Kyle. One tells the other that The Hum is especially loud today. One fingers the clouds, coming on rapidly, says that it looks like a storm is coming. Both things are self-evident there.
Both are true.
The intersections Tannahill’s The Listeners, a Giller Prize longlisted book, occupies are almost overwhelming when you stop and consider its ingrained themes.
Powerfully, the novel sets itself up as a memoir of a woman who is retrospectively trying to arrange the moments of her life that turned into a rampant cascade that swept her away from what was her “normal”. There are remarks situated outside of her narrative that reference fictional events. Disclaimers or context that work to give the reader an added sense of suspense and unease simply because it implies with its framing that this is reality.
In a way it is.
Claire Devon is not weak-minded or willed. She, in many ways, holds a leadership position in almost every dynamic she encounters in her town. She’s a teacher who cares. A mentor when needed. Someone who stands up to bullshit rhetoric that is little more than stereotyping and misogyny. But she’s also got an element of everydayness that permeates her life like a nervous tick. Unbidden and unwelcome in an otherwise curated, mostly happy existence is this malaise that she deals with. Nothing is perfect.
But without rhyme or reason, one random evening, she begins to hear the sound of a low hum that throws off her equilibrium. Her tick is now real.
When she discovers one of her students, Kyle, also hears The Hum, the two form a camaraderie that feels beyond friendship (and any other categorization) — and the fiction adopts detective-like undertones.
They chart the town in search of a sound no one, ostensibly, can hear but them. And this obsession, as it becomes, is a catalyst for Claire’s life to morph into a completely different vessel. The shape of which her friends and her husband and daughter cannot make sense of, and so shun her.
Alone together, Claire and Kyle discover a group of people in town who also hear The Hum, and they begin in earnest (and fervor) to tackle this mystery. The interesting thing about this is Claire’s shame rubs off on the reader. When she feels seen, the reader does. The impact of finding an in-group for something so strangely marginalized simultaneously ramps up the suspense — as each group member seems to have a different theory ranging from scientific, or perhaps pseudo-scientific, to conspiracy theories and spirituality.
Claire, meanwhile, is not sleeping.
She tows a line where she is vulnerable and completely contrary to her former self as established, but also more supported and loved; surrounded by people who hear The Hum and believe her unequivocally. Is it healthy? Is it dangerous?
At this point, the book can be examined almost like a prism. You can easily see a particular reading of what occurs only so far until it elicits other thoughts which then collide with one another. You can choose to believe Claire. Or not. Both roads set you down alternate readings. If you do believe her, you then need to pick up the same theories Claire does and twist them about in the hunt for a connection you can label as “correct” or “right”.
It is impossible not to make the connection between her beliefs and others. What is The Hum compared to Him; God, of any stripe or color or flavor?
Perhaps the most horrific thing in this novel is it pointing to how we treat people outside of our socialization — especially clever here because there are no existing (moral or political or otherwise) associations with people who hear The Hum, as with other marginalized identities that our socialization has prompted us to sort already.
The reaction to Claire by her loved ones is similar to people being confronted with anything they don’t understand.
At one point even Claire describes her meeting the others as something similar. It’s as though she lived in one room her whole life and then discovered a door that led to another room. But it’s black and cavernous and terrifying. But she needs to know what is in the other room. Yet the effects on Claire are discernable and troubling. Are they caused by The Hum itself, not sleeping, mental health, being ostracized? What is the relationship between these things, if any?
And because this is all first-person narration by Claire after the fact, there is a component that feels noticeably absent: objectivity. The larger context is not provided outside of Claire, save for her group.
This is where The Listeners really shines.
Passages detailing the dynamics between the characters in their AA-esk meetings are so believable and pungent and tangible that it reaches into that liminal space some readers know and yearn for. Where these granular qualities imbued in a scene transcend; the reader entering a hyper-reality of their own experiences and thoughts and interactions. The text becoming a universal shorthand or bite-sized truth that briefly encapsulates the complexity of people into a consumable form for the reader.
It’s a rare gift hopefully every reader has received.
The suspense that underlies these really beautiful moments between people who share something no one else understands underscores the unique quality this book evokes.
How easy it is to fall out of status with society and with the people who should be best equipped to support you and love you unconditionally. If you do not conform to what is described by society as “normal” you do not get to participate in it. Even though, arguably, all our interactions are performance. If you are out of step you learn what it’s like outside of the dance.
In the time of COVID, this feels particularly prescient and compelling. The Listeners made me think a lot about society and how we interact with one another. About beliefs and their power. About the scope of knowledge, we currently take for granted but continually revise across our lifetimes.
It made me feel really angry about how we treat each other. What we consider good and bad and nourishing or vile.
It is easy to picture a place where all the fallout that comes from Claire hearing The Hum would simply never happen. Maybe there are massive power lines going through a town, towing electricity to a city. There Claire is walking into a school, bumps into Kyle. One tells the other that The Hum is especially loud today. One fingers the clouds, coming on rapidly, says that it looks like a storm is coming. Both things are self-evident there.
Both are true.
November 6, 2021
*Update Nov 5th 2021: Screw it, I'm bumping up the rating. This may not have been what I hoped for, but it was still super interesting. I think I was a little too harsh on it originally.
Mass hysteria and a sex cult. I would have loved this if it became more of a horror novel. Instead it stayed as a contemporary suspense or light thriller. Some of the main characters thoughts and actions didn't make a lot of sense, which sometimes happens when a male author writes from a female character's perspective. It was pretty good, I just wanted a lot more.
Mass hysteria and a sex cult. I would have loved this if it became more of a horror novel. Instead it stayed as a contemporary suspense or light thriller. Some of the main characters thoughts and actions didn't make a lot of sense, which sometimes happens when a male author writes from a female character's perspective. It was pretty good, I just wanted a lot more.
November 9, 2021
This book had a few problems with it that made it difficult. The first was that the plot was unpolished and not as well-constructed as was needed for this kind of work. The second was the characters. When a male writes a female character, the author has limited access to the experience of a woman, and there was too much inner-workings-of-her-mind to make the character natural. It was hard not to notice that this was a man impersonating a woman. In the end, I didn't care for the story or the characters.
October 7, 2021
I’m officially giving up on this book! I’m only 5 chapters in but I already find the narrator to be incredibly annoying, unreliable, and selfish. I also hate the way this is written, specifically how dialogue isn’t clearly distinguished from the protagonist’s narration. I can’t see myself ever picking this book back up again!
May 19, 2023
This isn’t what I expected at all from the blurb but I still really enjoyed where the story went. It became very weird and surreal and I enjoyed the underlying commentary on how conspiracy theories can have consequences and how quickly myths and phenomenons can spread.
January 4, 2022
This book drove me insane. I read it from cover to cover and afterward questioned my own sanity in doing so. Just say no. It is quite wacky. Certainly shocked it made the Giller Finals.
October 4, 2025
Me ha gustado lo que hace Jordan Tannahill en Los que oyen: plasmar las fricciones en la sociedad del bienestar a la hora de atender las necesidades individuales que se alejan de las generalidades. Particularmente cuando una crisis personal acentúa las dificultades, como le ocurre a la narradora de la historia cuando empieza a oír un trasunto del hum.
Tannahill mantiene el casi imposible equilibrio de relatarlo sin juzgar, exponiendo lo que siente la narradora a medida que le van llegando interpretaciones o elabora las propias sin caer en lo paródico o lo crédulo. Cómo se habla de la epidemia de salud mental y nadie presta atención a lo que le sucede; se le dan respuestas café para todos (es la menopausia, que te ha llegado antes); pierde el apoyo de los que supuestamente estaban ahí para prestárselo en cuanto la respuesta que necesita va más allá de un polvo de reconciliación o hacer una receta para tus seguidores de tik tok. El final, sin espoilear, apuesta por una aceptación terrible que expone cómo se cierran en falso muchas crisis a nuestro alrededor.
Si no le pongo más puntuación es porque la voz de Claire, la narradora, no me ha terminado de convencer. Profesora de literatura en un instituto, su relato en primera persona se acerca más a lo periodístico (precisión en el uso de las descripciones; una memoria literal al reproducir las conversaciones) que a una narradora que se haya sumergido en las obras que enseña. Huye de la mayoría de las figuras literarias que habrían dado matices al texto o de un relato más elaborado. También hay algún detalle que hace pensar que en la edición hubo cambios en la redacción (hay conversaciones que empiezan con estilo indirecto, o se vislumbran legajos de él, entre páginas y páginas de diálogos de guión cinematográfico). Según lo veo, habría tenido más sentido una manera más íntima de acercarse a su visión de lo que le rodea, menos objetiva.
Tannahill mantiene el casi imposible equilibrio de relatarlo sin juzgar, exponiendo lo que siente la narradora a medida que le van llegando interpretaciones o elabora las propias sin caer en lo paródico o lo crédulo. Cómo se habla de la epidemia de salud mental y nadie presta atención a lo que le sucede; se le dan respuestas café para todos (es la menopausia, que te ha llegado antes); pierde el apoyo de los que supuestamente estaban ahí para prestárselo en cuanto la respuesta que necesita va más allá de un polvo de reconciliación o hacer una receta para tus seguidores de tik tok. El final, sin espoilear, apuesta por una aceptación terrible que expone cómo se cierran en falso muchas crisis a nuestro alrededor.
Si no le pongo más puntuación es porque la voz de Claire, la narradora, no me ha terminado de convencer. Profesora de literatura en un instituto, su relato en primera persona se acerca más a lo periodístico (precisión en el uso de las descripciones; una memoria literal al reproducir las conversaciones) que a una narradora que se haya sumergido en las obras que enseña. Huye de la mayoría de las figuras literarias que habrían dado matices al texto o de un relato más elaborado. También hay algún detalle que hace pensar que en la edición hubo cambios en la redacción (hay conversaciones que empiezan con estilo indirecto, o se vislumbran legajos de él, entre páginas y páginas de diálogos de guión cinematográfico). Según lo veo, habría tenido más sentido una manera más íntima de acercarse a su visión de lo que le rodea, menos objetiva.
May 17, 2023
I was persuaded to read this by my local bookshop but it wasn't really my sort of book.
One red flag for me was the blurbs written mostly by authors I've never heard of.
Too much dialogue and self analysis, I didn't engage with the story.
One red flag for me was the blurbs written mostly by authors I've never heard of.
Too much dialogue and self analysis, I didn't engage with the story.
January 13, 2025
i guess you could say that this book didnt strike the right CHORD with me…. the TONE was off and it missed a BEAT!!!!!
no but this had such an interesting plot but i found it dragged a lot. although it was only 200 or so pages, it felt like there were unnecessary scenes that took away from the story.
no but this had such an interesting plot but i found it dragged a lot. although it was only 200 or so pages, it felt like there were unnecessary scenes that took away from the story.
October 30, 2021
"How could I transform my relationship with the sounds I was hearing? To The Hum? If this was a natural phenomenon, how could I learn to live with nature, as opposed to in opposition to it?"
What seems like yet another Reese's Book Club pick about a middle-aged white woman at the centre of a neighbourhood scandal is instead a complex thematic meditation about public attitudes towards difference. The way Tanahill executed The Hum as a metaphor for queerness and neurodiversity was really stunning and didn't shy away from the uncomfortable. I really didn't expect to love this as much as I did. Fingers crossed for the Giller!
What seems like yet another Reese's Book Club pick about a middle-aged white woman at the centre of a neighbourhood scandal is instead a complex thematic meditation about public attitudes towards difference. The way Tanahill executed The Hum as a metaphor for queerness and neurodiversity was really stunning and didn't shy away from the uncomfortable. I really didn't expect to love this as much as I did. Fingers crossed for the Giller!
October 27, 2022
Big 4.5 stars!! Loved this book. More psychologically interesting than spooky, an intimate look at group-think, indoctrination, cultish behaviour, cause and effect. I just loved it. I also physically yelled near the end. Very good book.
April 15, 2022
This book is a red hot mess, but it bizarrely works, it's actually quite brilliant.
April 11, 2021
I was not sure what to expect before I started reading this novel- on the surface, a novel about characters who can hear a constant, low humming noise feels like it could potentially feel like a tense and taut horror film, or could be something mundane.
For me, the book definitely felt like the former, but done so well that I thoroughly enjoyed the ride and read it in just over a day.
Claire Devon, the narrator of the book and one of its main characters, starts with almost an apology, recognising that what she is about to say will sound bizarre or may not paint her in the best light, and there is something so immediately charming and unnerving about this confession- we start feeling from the beginning that she is simultaneously the best person to tell this story (as she was there and it all happened to her), but that she may be unreliable, having a reason behind wanting to clear her name and tell her story.
Throughout the book, we watch as Claire, along with a growing number of others, are driven to despair by the sound, in a way that felt very Kafka-esque in its suffocating tightness. She loses sleep, damages relationships, and makes a series of poor decisions that drive her further into the arms of a support group- the titular 'Listeners'.
But this is where the book strikes gold for me. Tannahill could have very easily stopped the story here, or rounded the tale off with a nice happy ending where she no longer hears the sound, or where she learns to live with it. Instead, we get a tense tale of conspiracy theorists, troubled relationships, and a real breakdown in both Claire's sanity, but also her relationships with others and the world around her.
Some of the group feel steadfastly that they want to find an explanation for the sound, others are convinced they have all the answers, and another set of people want to channel this sound as a 'power.' We then get very interesting commentaries on the real world- on conspiracies in the US such as QAnon or anti-vaxxer movements. Tannahill balances this very delicately so it never feels like she is endorsing these viewpoints, but also makes it categorically clear that these are not the same thing as Claire hearing the sound.
As a result, the book deftly sidesteps what could have felt preachy or moralising, and instead feels like a very raw and entertaining examination of a woman who is increasingly isolated from her community, and the new communities she clings to like life-rafts as a result. The book also pulls a clever trick here where we start to distrust Claire as a narrator, but also know that we have no other window into her life- she might feel at one moment as if she is being gaslit, which makes us as readers wonder if we are guilty of doing that to her.
This novel as a result feels very current and of-the-moment, but also is heartwarming and heart-breaking in equal measure, as we watch Claire and her family, try, and fail, to contend with something we can never fully do- know what is going on inside someone else's head.
I received an advanced review copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
For me, the book definitely felt like the former, but done so well that I thoroughly enjoyed the ride and read it in just over a day.
Claire Devon, the narrator of the book and one of its main characters, starts with almost an apology, recognising that what she is about to say will sound bizarre or may not paint her in the best light, and there is something so immediately charming and unnerving about this confession- we start feeling from the beginning that she is simultaneously the best person to tell this story (as she was there and it all happened to her), but that she may be unreliable, having a reason behind wanting to clear her name and tell her story.
Throughout the book, we watch as Claire, along with a growing number of others, are driven to despair by the sound, in a way that felt very Kafka-esque in its suffocating tightness. She loses sleep, damages relationships, and makes a series of poor decisions that drive her further into the arms of a support group- the titular 'Listeners'.
But this is where the book strikes gold for me. Tannahill could have very easily stopped the story here, or rounded the tale off with a nice happy ending where she no longer hears the sound, or where she learns to live with it. Instead, we get a tense tale of conspiracy theorists, troubled relationships, and a real breakdown in both Claire's sanity, but also her relationships with others and the world around her.
Some of the group feel steadfastly that they want to find an explanation for the sound, others are convinced they have all the answers, and another set of people want to channel this sound as a 'power.' We then get very interesting commentaries on the real world- on conspiracies in the US such as QAnon or anti-vaxxer movements. Tannahill balances this very delicately so it never feels like she is endorsing these viewpoints, but also makes it categorically clear that these are not the same thing as Claire hearing the sound.
As a result, the book deftly sidesteps what could have felt preachy or moralising, and instead feels like a very raw and entertaining examination of a woman who is increasingly isolated from her community, and the new communities she clings to like life-rafts as a result. The book also pulls a clever trick here where we start to distrust Claire as a narrator, but also know that we have no other window into her life- she might feel at one moment as if she is being gaslit, which makes us as readers wonder if we are guilty of doing that to her.
This novel as a result feels very current and of-the-moment, but also is heartwarming and heart-breaking in equal measure, as we watch Claire and her family, try, and fail, to contend with something we can never fully do- know what is going on inside someone else's head.
I received an advanced review copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
April 3, 2021
I really loved the premise of this book: Claire Devon, a high school teacher, suddenly starts hearing a low frequency noise one evening. She seems to be the only one who can hear it and her husband Paul and her daughter Ashley think she's just... crazy. She loses her sleep, she loses her concentration, she grows isolated; until she finds out that one of her students, Kyle, can hear 'The Hum' too. Later they find out there are many more people who can hear it and they decide to start meeting regularly.
I liked that the author kept the novel about the group of 'Hummers' and how they fit (or don't) within their community; I liked that finding the source of the noise was not the purpose of the book. Some members of the book wanted to find it, some wanted to eliminate it, some wanted to live with it. Everyone had a different explanation for it and tried to make sense of it. The fall into conspiracy theories was well described and well executed.
Some parts I found poorly written; the dialogues were incredibly irritating, unclear, too long. The first meeting of the group took too much of the book and I found myself speed-reading these long discussions. Towards the end of the book - without revealing what happens - I found myself cringing when the group met.
So it isn't a perfect book, but I found it enjoyable and at times even thought-provoking.
Free ARC received from Netgalley - book coming out 8th July 2021.
I liked that the author kept the novel about the group of 'Hummers' and how they fit (or don't) within their community; I liked that finding the source of the noise was not the purpose of the book. Some members of the book wanted to find it, some wanted to eliminate it, some wanted to live with it. Everyone had a different explanation for it and tried to make sense of it. The fall into conspiracy theories was well described and well executed.
Some parts I found poorly written; the dialogues were incredibly irritating, unclear, too long. The first meeting of the group took too much of the book and I found myself speed-reading these long discussions. Towards the end of the book - without revealing what happens - I found myself cringing when the group met.
So it isn't a perfect book, but I found it enjoyable and at times even thought-provoking.
Free ARC received from Netgalley - book coming out 8th July 2021.
February 21, 2024
From the blurb I perceived this book to be a thriller/horror. It took an entirely different direction to what I was expecting, although still an interesting one. This story follows a group of people who can hear a sound, ‘The Hum’, resonating from around them that the rest of the population cannot hear.
I assumed that there would be a deeper dive into the origins of this sound with more thriller/horror/sci-fi elements, I think there was great potential for that.
Ultimately, the book demonstrates the effects and consequences of conspiracy theories and extreme beliefs. There was little focus on the actual source of the sound, which I was disappointed by and would’ve preferred more commentary on.
I assumed that there would be a deeper dive into the origins of this sound with more thriller/horror/sci-fi elements, I think there was great potential for that.
Ultimately, the book demonstrates the effects and consequences of conspiracy theories and extreme beliefs. There was little focus on the actual source of the sound, which I was disappointed by and would’ve preferred more commentary on.
January 27, 2023
I feel like giving this book two scores - 5 stars for the concept, 1.5 for the execution?
The concept is so original and interesting, especially when conspiracy theories are so popular nowadays. But the writing is so bad in parts, I laughed out loud a few times as a result: “My stomach was in knots and I was letting out little stress farts, which Kyle had the grace not to remark on”.
The group meetings pointlessly meander too. I had to skim these. And the way these characters are introduced was also rather poor.
The concept is so original and interesting, especially when conspiracy theories are so popular nowadays. But the writing is so bad in parts, I laughed out loud a few times as a result: “My stomach was in knots and I was letting out little stress farts, which Kyle had the grace not to remark on”.
The group meetings pointlessly meander too. I had to skim these. And the way these characters are introduced was also rather poor.
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