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Title details for Lost Empress by Sergio De La Pava - Available

Lost Empress

A Novel

by Sergio De La Pava
Edoardo Ballerini
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
From the acclaimed PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize-winning author of A Naked Singularity, a shockingly hilarious novel that tackles, with equal aplomb, both America’s most popular sport and its criminal justice system
 
From Paterson, New Jersey, to Rikers Island to the streets of New York City, Sergio de la Pava’s Lost Empress introduces readers to a cast of characters unlike any other in modern fiction: dreamers and exiles, immigrants and night-shift workers, a lonely pastor and others on the fringes of society—each with their own impact on the fragile universe they navigate.
 
Nina Gill, daughter of the aging owner of the Dallas Cowboys, was instrumental in building her father’s dynasty. So it’s a shock when her brother inherits the franchise and she is left with the Paterson Pork, New Jersey’s failing Indoor Football League team. Nina vows to take on the NFL and make the Paterson Pork pigskin kings of America. All she needs to do is recruit the coach, the players, and the fans.
 
Meanwhile, Nuno DeAngeles—a brilliant and lethal criminal mastermind—has been imprisoned on Rikers Island for a sensational offense. Nuno fights for his liberty—while simultaneously planning an even more audacious crime.
 
In Lost Empress, de la Pava weaves a narrative that encompasses Salvador Dalí, Joni Mitchell, psychiatric help, emergency medicine, religion, theoretical physics, and everything in between. With grace, humor, and razor-sharp prose, all these threads combine, counting down to an epic and extraordinary conclusion.
Cast of Narrators:
main narration, by Edoardo Ballerini
Nina Gill, read by Carol Monda
Dia Nouveau, read by Brittany Pressley
Nuno de Angeles, read by James Fouhey
Major Harris, read by Bob Bray
Daniel Gill, read by Richard Topol
Sharon Seaborg, read by Quincy T. Bernstine
Hugh Seaborg, read by Ryan Anderson
Coach Elkins, read by Richard Ferrone
Feniz Heredia, read by Tony Chiroldes
Larry Brown, read by Jeff Gurner
Travis Mena, read by Dan Bittner
Nelson Cervantes, read by Gonzalo Ingram 
Solomon Hanes, read by David LeDoux
Reeves, read by Leo Coltrane
Ed Coin, read by Johnny Heller
Father Ventimiglia, read by Mark McCarthy
The Theorist, read by Geoffrey Campbell
Nina’s Father, read by Richard Poe
and with additional roles read by some of the above and by Francisco Burgos, Christina Delaine, Jim Frangione, Tavia Gilbert, Lianna Gomori, Pete Larkin, Angel Saldana, Adriana Sananes, Brandon Ruben, Paul Ruben, and the author, Sergio de la Pava.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 8, 2018

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780525634447
      • File size: 551478 KB
      • Duration: 19:08:54

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from April 2, 2018
      In his extraordinary new novel, de la Pava (A Naked Singularity) weaves together several story lines centered around Paterson, N.J. Nina Gill is a preternaturally gifted football strategist. She stands to inherit the Dallas Cowboys, but instead ends up with the family’s far less desirable Indoor Football League franchise, the Paterson Pork. However, an NFL lockout gives Nina the opportunity to build an absurd alternative for showcasing the sport she loves. A few miles from Paterson, Nuno DeAngeles sits imprisoned in Rikers Island. An out-of-place intellectual, Nuno is able to manipulate his lawyer and eventually lands in the somewhat cushier Bellevue Hospital while he conspires with his fellow inmate Solomon to commit a mysterious crime. Between these two worlds, de la Pava takes readers into the lives of ordinary Patersonians who work as EMTs, 911 operators, and a pig-suit-wearing mascot. Like his previous work, de la Pava’s novel employs a variety of narrative forms, including legal briefs, sermons, phone transcripts, and the text of a prison handbook. De la Pava is a maximalist worldbuilder, and the incredible multiverse he constructs in this book establishes him as one of the most fearsomely talented American novelists working today.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Full-cast audiobook productions can be tricky. Done well, they are engrossing; one wrong move, and they are perplexing. This audiobook falls into the latter category. Transitions are abrupt, pacing is challengingly fast, and characters are more often caricatures. The novel's premise is engaging--conflicts involving familial unrest and professional football, as well as some subplots, are creative, and the dialogue is often biting and sometimes funny. That said, the frantic narrative pace combined with some rather involved sentences makes the interaction among all these stories difficult to follow. Dialogue is inserted in blocks, and those vocal performances lean toward the cartoonish. The novel itself has merit, but this audio production falls short. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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