Listen to Me

Author(s):
Hannah Pittard
Book summary:

Mark and Maggie’s annual drive east to visit family has gotten off to a rocky start. By the time they’re on the road, it’s late, a storm is brewing, and they are no longer speaking to each other. Adding to the stress, Maggie – recently mugged at gunpoint – is lately not herself, and Mark is at a loss about what to make of the stranger he calls his wife. When the couple is forced to stop for the night at a remote inn completely without power, Maggie’s paranoia reaches an all-time and terrifying high. But as Mark finds himself threatened in a dark parking lot, it’s Maggie who takes control.

Publication year:
2016
Publisher:
Houghton Mifflin
Praise:
Quote:
“Pittard proves herself a master of ordinary suspense.”
Credit:
New York Times
Quote:
“Listen to Me elides so many genres that it’s Houdini-like, bursting through constraints. It moves between its two characters’ inner lives as effortlessly as an Olympic swimmer strokes through water.”
Credit:
Ann Beattie, Paris Review blog
Quote:
“A psychologically complex, addictive, and quick-moving read. I didn’t want it to end!”
Credit:
M.O. Walsh, author of New York Times best-selling novel My Sunshine Away
Quote:
“Pittard deserves the attention of anyone in search of today’s best fiction.”
Credit:
Washington Post
Quote:
“Revelatory.”
Credit:
The New Yorker
Quote:
“[Listen to Me] gripped me completely and even gave me nightmares, which is high praise in my book.”
Credit:
Chicago Tribune
Bio:
Photo:
Short bio:
Hannah Pittard is the author of four novels, including Listen to Me (a New York Times Editors' Choice) and Visible Empire (a New York Times "New & Noteworthy" selection). She is winner of the 2006 Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, a MacDowell Colony Fellow, recipient of a 2018 Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship, and a consulting editor for Narrative Magazine. Her work has appeared in the Sewanee Review, the New York Times, and other publications. She is a professor of English at the University of Kentucky, where she directs the MFA program in creative writing.
A&S department affiliation: