Etta And Otto And Russell And James: A Novel

  • Author: Emma Hooper
  • Narrator: Robert G. Slade
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster
  • Duration: 8:02:41
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Synopsis

This “poetic, poignant” (US Weekly) debut features last great adventures, unlikely heroes, and a “sweet, disarming story of lasting love” (The New York Times Book Review).

Eighty-three-year-old Etta has never seen the ocean. So early one morning she takes a rifle, some chocolate, and her best boots and begins walking the 3,232 kilometers from rural Saskatchewan, Canada eastward to the sea. As Etta walks further toward the crashing waves, the lines among memory, illusion, and reality blur.

Otto wakes to a note left on the kitchen table. “I will try to remember to come back,” Etta writes to her husband. Otto has seen the ocean, having crossed the Atlantic years ago to fight in a far-away war. He understands. But with Etta gone, the memories come crowding in and Otto struggles to keep them at bay. Meanwhile, their neighbor Russell has spent his whole life trying to keep up with Otto and loving Etta from afar. Russell insists on finding Etta, wherever she’s gone. Leaving his own farm will be the first act of defiance in his life.

Moving from the hot and dry present of a quiet Canadian farm to a dusty, burnt past of hunger, war, and passion, from trying to remember to trying to forget, Etta and Otto and Russell and James is an astounding literary debut “of deep longing, for reinvention and self-discovery, as well as for the past and for love and for the boundless unknown” (San Francisco Chronicle). “In this haunting debut, set in a starkly beautiful landscape, Hooper delineates the stories of Etta and the men she loved (Otto and Russell) as they intertwine through youth and wartime and into old age. It’s a lovely book you’ll want to linger over” (People).

Chapters

  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 01 Title

    Duration: 34s
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 02 Ch1

    Duration: 04min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 03 Ch2

    Duration: 13min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 04 Ch3

    Duration: 32min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 05 Ch4

    Duration: 21min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 06 Ch5

    Duration: 38min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 07 Ch6

    Duration: 24min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 08 Ch7

    Duration: 37min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 09 Ch8

    Duration: 35min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 10 Ch9

    Duration: 23min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 11 Ch10

    Duration: 24min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 12 Ch11

    Duration: 40min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 13 Ch12

    Duration: 13min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 14 Ch13

    Duration: 35min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 15 Ch14

    Duration: 12min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 16 Ch15

    Duration: 18min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 17 Ch16

    Duration: 24min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 18 Ch17

    Duration: 56min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 19 Ch18

    Duration: 11min
  • EttaAndOttoAndRusselAndJames 20 Ch19

    Duration: 04min
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