Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Swan
    Unavailable
    Swan
    Unavailable
    Swan
    Audiobook10 hours

    Swan

    Written by Frances Mayes

    Narrated by Debra Monk

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    By the #1 bestselling author of Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany and In Tuscany, Swan is a haunting novel set in the deep South -- a resonant tale of long-buried family secrets and mysteries brought suddenly to light.

    In her celebrated memoirs of life in Tuscany, Frances Mayes writes masterfully about people in a powerful and shaping place. In Swan, her first novel, she has created an equally intimate world, rich with striking characters and intriguing twists of fate, that hearkens back to her southern roots.

    The Masons are a prominent but now fragmented family who have lived for generations in Swan, an edenic, hidebound small town in Georgia. As Swan opens, a bizarre crime pulls Ginger Mason home from her life as an archeologist in Italy: The body of her mother, Catherine, a suicide nineteen years before, has been mysteriously exhumed. Reunited on new terms with her troubled, isolated brother J.J., who has never ventured far from Swan, the Mason children grapple with the profound effects of their mother's life and death on their own lives. When a new explanation for Catherine's death emerges, and other closely guarded family secrets rise to the surface as well, Ginger and J.J. are confronted with startling truths about their family, a particular ordeal in a family and a town that wants to keep the past buried.

    Beautifully evoking the rhythms and idiosyncrasies of the deep South while telling an utterly compelling story of the complexity of family ties, Swan marks the remarkable fiction debut of one of America's best-loved writers.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 8, 2002
    ISBN9780739301678
    Unavailable
    Swan

    Related to Swan

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Great Read

      Mar 22, 2023

      Great Read
      8 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Kwan, Center, Iglesias, and More

      Jul 14, 2020

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from the likes of Kevin Kwan, Katherine Center, Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, and more—that are publishing this week. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Kwan, Center, Iglesias, and More appeare

      5 min read

    • Article

      Home Truths

      Sep 22, 2023

      American novelist and doctor Daniel Mason is already well known for his wonderfully atmospheric historical novels The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier. North Woods sees him explore innovative approaches to historical fiction, and even surpasses tho

      1 min read

    • Article

      Red Star Rising

      Jul 11, 2021

      With THE VIXEN (HarperCollins, $35), acclaimed writer Francine Prose explores a rich and tense period of American history in the early 1950s, when McCarthyism is waging a cultural cold war and communist sympathisers Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who ar

      3 min read

    • Article

      'North Woods' Is The Story Of A Place And Its Inhabitants Over Centuries

      Sep 19, 2023

      Daniel Mason's gorgeous fifth novel tells of a yellow house deep in the woods of western Massachusetts — and its motley succession of occupants who leave their mark on the property.

      3 min read

    • Article

      THE Reading room

      Nov 4, 2020

      THE Reading room
      4 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Spencer, Phillips, and More

      Jun 16, 2020

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from the likes of  Scott Spencer, Lucie Britsch, Ashleigh Bryant Phillips, and more—that are publishing this week. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Spencer, Phillips, and More appeared fi

      5 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Jun 15, 2022

      Beautifully written, this contemporary portrait of a rural doctor’s life mirrors A Fortunate Man, written by John Berger in 1967. Fifty years on, we have a woman doctor – kind, modest and thoughtful – who celebrates both a life lived in the countrysi

      2 min read

    • Article

      Home & away

      Oct 30, 2022

      Home & away
      3 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Li, Greer, Strout, and More

      Sep 20, 2022

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from Yiyun Li, Andrew Sean Greer, Elizabeth Strout, and more—that are publishing this week. Want to learn more about upcoming titles? Then go read our most recent book preview. Want to help The Mil

      3 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Messud, Boland, and More

      Oct 13, 2020

      This week we're looking at new titles from the likes of Claire Messud, Eavan Boland, and Max Gross. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Messud, Boland, and More appeared first on The Millions.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Wednesday New Release Day: Starring Ball, Orlean, and More

      Oct 13, 2021

      This week, we're looking at new titles from Bethany Ball, Susan Orlean, Margaret Verble, and Judith Freeman. The post Wednesday New Release Day: Starring Ball, Orlean, and More appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Jun 15, 2022

      Great Read
      4 min read

    • Article

      WINGS of DESIRE

      Sep 5, 2021

      Sandro Veronesi’s THE HUMMINGBIRD (W&N, $37.99) is a clever, comedic and highly entertaining Italian novel (translated by Elena Pala) from the very beginning. A visit from his wife’s therapist throws a spanner into the life of Dr Marco Carrera, a man

      4 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Jun 15, 2022

      Great Read
      4 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Apr 11, 2022

      by Okwiri Oduor (One World Publications, ISBN 9780861543878) oneworld-publications.com Twelve-year-old Ayosa inhabits a world of blurred boundaries. Her memories pre-date her birth; wraiths, ghosts, emotions and nightmares are as real and compelling

      4 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Jul 13, 2022

      Great Read
      7 min read

    • Article

      Book Reviews

      Oct 11, 2016

      by Eowyn Ivey Published by Headline Publishing ISBN 9781472208613 $32.99 Eowyn Ivey’s latest novel is set in the harsh, life-threatening landscape of Alaska during the late nineteenth century. The desolate country that follows the Wolverine River nor

      4 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Mar 22, 2023

      Great Read
      2 min read

    • Article

      Childhood, Mystery, And Friendship: Our 10 Favorite July Reads

      Jul 20, 2023

      1. Small Worldsby Caleb Azumah Nelson How does one claim one’s individuality in the midst of others’ expectations? Caleb Azumah Nelson’s novel focuses on Stephen, a London-born teen of Ghanaian immigrant parents, who walks away from a university educ

      2 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      May 19, 2021

      Great Read
      5 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Aug 9, 2023

      Great Read
      7 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reading Special

      Dec 28, 2023

      Summer Reading Special
      11 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Mar 25, 2022

      YOUNG ADULT FICTION By Christine Lynn Herman Looking for an atmospheric read filled with mystery and the paranormal? Then don’t miss the latest offering from the author of The Devouring Gray and The Deck Of Omens. The sea levels are rising and the li

      1 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Mar 25, 2022

      YOUNG ADULT FICTION By Christine Lynn Herman Looking for an atmospheric read filled with mystery and the paranormal? Then don’t miss the latest offering from the author of The Devouring Gray and The Deck Of Omens. The sea levels are rising and the li

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Must-read Books Of March

      Mar 5, 2021

      The Must-read Books Of March
      4 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Aug 9, 2023

      Great Read
      7 min read

    Reviews for Swan

    3.5/5

    38 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Found myself engrossed in the story and charmed by the characters. I fell in love with under the Tuscan sun when I read it many years ago. This book, though sad, was a delight.
    • 4/5
      In Swan, Georgia, it is humid, and everyone knows one another's business. This perfectly captures the feel of the "Old South" that lingers around what I like to call the "cotton aristocracy." (As a southerner, I am allowed to say this without any hint of condescension toward, and only love for, the people that phrase describes!) The characters are complex people that you feel you are gradually coming to know and like. It is a suspenseful story about a family who was torn apart by their mother's suicide. When someone digs up the mother's body the family is in for a shock, and their healing can begin. The theme of archaeology, both of historical artifacts, and skeletons in the family closet is explored in a unique way. One gets a real sense of both the South, and Italy, in this book.