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    Bradstreet Gate: A Novel
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    Bradstreet Gate: A Novel
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    Bradstreet Gate: A Novel
    Audiobook11 hours

    Bradstreet Gate: A Novel

    Written by Robin Kirman

    Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

    2.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A tour de force about three friends affected by a campus murder, for readers of Donna Tartt, Meg Wolitzer, and Jeffrey Eugenides

    Georgia, Charlie and Alice each arrive at Harvard with hopeful visions of what the future will hold. But when, just before graduation, a classmate is found murdered on campus, they find themselves facing a cruel and unanticipated new reality. Moreover, a charismatic professor who has loomed large in their lives is suspected of the crime. Though his guilt or innocence remains uncertain, the unsettling questions raised by the case force the three friends to take a deeper look at their tangled relationship. Their bond has been defined by the secrets they've kept from one another-Charlie's love and Alice's envy, Georgia's mysterious affair-and over the course of the next decade, as they grapple with the challenges of adulthood and witness the unraveling of a teacher's once-charmed life, they must reckon with their own deceits and shortcomings, each desperately in search of answers and the chance to be forgiven.

    A relentless, incisive, and keenly intelligent novel about promise, disappointment, and the often tenuous bonds of friendship, Bradstreet Gate is the auspicious debut of a tremendously talented new writer.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 7, 2015
    ISBN9780553399677
    Unavailable
    Bradstreet Gate: A Novel
    Author

    Robin Kirman

    Robin Kirman studied philosophy at Yale before receiving her MFA in writing from Columbia, where she also taught for several years. Her curiosity about human psychology has led her to combine work in psychoanalysis with writing fiction. Her first novel, Bradstreet Gate, was published in 2015, and her television series The Love Wave is currently in development.

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    Reviews for Bradstreet Gate

    2.5/5

    81 ratings45 reviews

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    • 3/5
      While there's truly beautiful prose here I felt overall disappointment. I wanted to "really like" it but I can only give this a nominal "like". This is the second book I've read this week with characters who are supposed to be friends but seem more like frienemies at the apex of their relationships. I oddly thought that the classmate murder mentioned in the book blurb would be a major factor in the plot but it was not and further did not really even seem central to what transpires between the main characters. I kept hoping until the last that it would at least be revealed who killed her and it was wasted hope. The ending was fairly abrupt but I'll admit that if I'd got the answer to the murder, I could have accepted it much more. I didn't at all mind that the characters weren't likable but I did have issue with the fact that I didn't find them all so compelling so as to make me really care to know more about them. Only two really were and the remainder, tedious. I'm not sure any of them really had enough actual character to sustain an entire book well. With that said, I'd likely read another by the author because some of the passages herein are the sort that will remain with me for a bit.I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via LibraryThing in exchange for my honest review.
    • 3/5
      I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of this book or my review itself.Three people enter Harvard as undergraduates, thinking this is the key to making their lives perfect. But an overly charming professor and a murder on campus shake their worlds to the core. As they graduate and grow into adults, the events from those four years continue to reverberate through every facet of their lives.I really liked Part 1, and the first half of Part 2. The mystery is highly intriguing, the characters are complex and interesting, and the writing style is excellent. Starting in modern day and flashing back to the events from the past creates a real sense of suspense that made me have to keep reading.From the second half of Part 2, through the end of the book, I just didn't love it. The mystery I was promised gets lost in the characters' ponderings, and the story really seems to just sort of meander along. I'm someone who always wants a mystery resolved, and not having any resolution to this mystery really left me unsatisfied. Reading an essay by the author located in the back of the book, it does seem this was exactly the intention, but it's not an intention I really enjoyed.To me, this definitely isn't the next The Secret History (one of my all-time favorite books), as some of the blurbs tout it as. This is not a bad book by any means, but the potential of the beginning of the book just seems to peter out about halfway through, and the non-solution left me unsatisfied.I think Kirman was just trying to do too much. Honestly, if the murder hadn't been included at all, I think the book would have been a tighter read. The author's purpose could definitely have been achieved using the other relationships, dramas, and revelations within the pages.
    • 2/5
      Being a mystery taking place at my alma mater, I really wanted to like this book. While the writing is ok, the novel/mystery attempts to be a sprawling epic with characters involved in complex lives and experiences after their escape from The Yard... where it seems a young professor, involved differently with each of our 3 protagonists, is to blame. Unfortunately, Kirman falls extremely short of this goal, leaving characters hanging along the way in incomplete experiences and failing to create a culmination to all of these ramblings. This has been compared to Donna Tartt, who succeeds in these complex sprawling stories, but other than a similar set of characters in a NE college in The Secret History, the comparison fails. This book could have used a few more iterations.ARC for review... but took a few attempts to complete.
    • 2/5
      Georgia, Alice and Charlie are the main characters who meet as Harvard freshman. Then there is Rufus Storrow who is an attorney but serves as a housemaster and a visiting professor. Before graduation a fellow student and friend Julie Patel is murdered, and Storrow is assumed to be guilty due to him matching the description of the killer and the argument he and Julie had in his classroom.

      I wanted to like this book because I love a good mystery, but for me there was too much back and forth between the characters, and their quirky lives. I was not drawn in by the characters as some others were, I found them a bit dysfunctional
    • 3/5
      Three students at Harvard become friends in the loosest sense of the word. One is having an affair with a professor, one is in love with that girl, and one exposes the affair. A murder occurs right before graduation, and all three “friends” go their separate ways. The book is told in present day and flashbacks. It’s well-written and interesting, but there’s not as much suspense and mystery as I thought there would be based on the book flap summary. The ending was a little unsatisfying, but I would read more by Kirman.
    • 1/5
      This book was boring and I'm still confused as to what happened. Skip it.
    • 3/5
      This is one of those where the premise is a little superior to the execution. I was wishing it was more of a page-turner than what it was, which was a more introspective character exploration.
    • 3/5
      Robin Kirman's novel can best be described as "literary-mystery." The development of her characters (Georgia, Charlie, Alice, Professor Storrow, and the ill-fated Julie Patel) absorb most of the book. The reader discovers the characters' secrets, desires, and deceits as the events from the last decade unfold. Who killed Julie Patel? And why? Narrated mostly from the point of view of Georgia, Brad Street Gate has a limited perspective on the mystery and moved a little too slowly for my tastes. Kirman is a talented writer whose prose was evocative, but the uncertain ending left me wanting for more.
    • 2/5
      The plot dragged on and on and on and on for the entire first 3/4 of the book. The last 1/4 was rushed and didn't give any resolution. Another toss this book across the room ending. Well written. Too bad it did not flow.
    • 3/5
      Just finished reading Brad Street Gate which I received through Early Reviewers. I loved the writing in this book. The author is talented and gets the way good writing flows. I wanted to like the book but I was so disappointed. I wanted more information about the characters. I wanted more information about the murder. I simply wanted more of everything. It was frustrating to be reading along and realize that the story just wasn't going anywhere. I thought about giving two stars but felt I should acknowledge that Robin Kirman is an excellent writer. I will look for her next book and hope for more.
    • 3/5
      Charlie, Georgia, and Alice meet as Freshman at Harvard and develop the intense friendships that college incubates. Their relationships take a dark twist when a mutual acquaintance is murdered their Senior year and a charismatic visiting professor is the chief suspect. Bradstreet Gate never takes off as a full-fledged mystery, and loses some steam in the second half, but as the story follows the altered paths of the three friends into adulthood, it maintains the intensity needed to pull the reader through. Read it for the character studies, not for a tidy or particularly satisfying ending.
    • 3/5
      This was a difficult book to read because I think it was the death of the girl which made me think that this was a murder mystery. It is not a murder mystery and the the murder is not the focal point of the book. This is a book about relationships both good and bad. i believe Ms. Kirman did a very good job of explaining the three friends relationship around the professor and how the murder changed each of their lives and of the impact such an event could have on an individual. As I have stated in past reviews it it not my intention to disclose the story just to give you my impressions. So I would read this book for a chapter and put it down for a while. There are other books that when I put them down never got finished. This was not one of them. The story stays with you so you keep reading. I hope you do the same.
    • 2/5
      could not finish or get into at all.
    • 3/5
      I'm a fan of Kirman's writing, to start; she does a nice job of capturing that precocious, pretentious Harvard undergrad's language without turning the book over to bring pretentious itself. I also found she really gave her characters her all and brought them to their fullest, most fleshed out potential. But the novel overall doesn't measure up to those strengths. The murder that the back cover implies is at the center of the book is never resolved or really even proven relevant -- it felt tacked on, like Kirman wanted comparisons to The Secret History by Donna Tartt to come up. This is not a mystery. It is a character study. The murder seems almost ancillary. While I'm not sure I'd recommend this novel, I would read more by Kirman.
    • 3/5
      I began reading with high hopes as the prologue set up a very interesting premise. However, as the book went on, I found myself frequently confused about time and place. The chapters seem haphazardly arranged - the bones are there, but they do not seem connected.I did find that the characters Ms. Kirman created were very interesting. It was the plot that I had a hard time with.Three friends, Georgia, Charlie, and Alice have complicated relationships during their four years at Harvard, and all are put to the test when a classmate is murdered just before graduation. The prime suspect is a professor that Charlie admires, Georgia has been sleeping with, and Alice writes about in an expose. Alice's story outs the secret relationship with Georgia, which in turn breaks Charlie's lovelorn heart.The rest of the book follows the three main characters over the following years leading up to the ten year anniversary of Julie's murder.As stated already, I found the meandering through the lives of the characters was interesting about the characters but not about the plot.I was very disappointed in the ending - I did not feel that all three characters got closure of any kind. They did display growth, which I guess could be the point.
    • 3/5
      This is the tale of three students at Harvard: Georgia, Charlie and Alice. Their lives become entangled through friendship, bizarre relationships with a college professor and through a murder that occurred on campus where the prime suspect is the professor. This book also follows their lives after college where they go their separate ways, but end up back at Harvard at the end, with their lives still entangled and their relationships with each other, as well as with their professor, still subject to interpretation. I found it slow moving with little suspense. While the characters were interesting, the overall story was not one I enjoyed a great deal.
    • 2/5
      A very tangled story of three college students during and after they are at Harvard. It was difficult at times to know if I was reading the present or the past as each chapter just went in a different direction. And as others have said, it just ended. The people are still just meandering around with really no explanation as to why they did certain things. While the book kept me interested until the end, well, the end comes before any resolution which was the author's choice.
    • 3/5
      First off, let me say that I did not find this book like a "Secret History" and I usually have a problem with comparisons because they rarely measure up. A group of friends who band together at school, Yale share a relationship with an eccentric professor who is later accused of murdering a fellow co-ed. The story bounces back and forth from college days and later years to present. Charlie, Georgia and Alice all have issues and are damaged but it is Professor Storrow whose career and reputation is shattered.Fans of the preppy elite falling off the pedestal will delve deeply into this book. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.
    • 4/5
      I agree with others who've said this is beautifully written and yet unsatisfying somehow nevertheless. Kirman writes lovely sentences and draws characters so neatly and efficiently, and the story she tells is compelling, right up until the last page, where it just... ends. In the supplementary material included with the Extra Libris edition, she explains this choice to some degree, but her reasoning isn't very satisfying either - it's not that one senses she couldn't have come up with a more satisfying ending, or an ending that answers in some meaningful way what the reader comes to see as the central question of the book, but rather that she chose not to, which I think winds up feeling as if it's a bit unkind to the reader. A worthwhile and very engaging read, although I would not, as Good Housekeeping apparently does, describe it as "unputdownable," and not solely because that is not a word.
    • 3/5
      This book was interesting enough - tracing the lives of friends who met at Harvard through their college and adult lives, most of which were impacted by the unresolved murdered of one of their classmates during their senior year. An interesting story, but one that never seems to really go anywhere. While I enjoyed the characterization and the wide range of personalities which inhabit this novel, I felt like the plot never fully reached its conclusion, that the story simply ended with a few vital elements missing.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book, but the characters were extremely dysfunctional. The story revolves around the murder of a college student and three friends who are intertwined in the story. Although I enjoyed the story, I felt like it ended abruptly and I never really got the answers I was looking for to resolve the murder mystery presented.
    • 3/5
      Bradstreet Gate follows the lives of three people who met as undergraduates at Harvard and follows the course of their lives for the ten years following their graduation. Their lives are inextricably intertwined and further affected by the murder of a classmate. The alleged murderer is a controversial professor whose relationship with each of the three is complicated. I thought the character development was excellent even though the resolution of the homicide was obscure. The familial histories were complete and demonstrated how and why each of the three became the people they were as adults. Robin Kirman has demonstrated a talent that will undoubtedly continue to bring praise to her as an accomplished writer. I am grateful to LibraryThing for the opportunity to receive this book as an ARC.
    • 4/5
      Good story about three students who meet at Harvard, their lives entangled in myriad of ways, most not good, including one who has an affair with a professor. The novel is positioned as "can't put down," I guess because a student dies shortly before they graduate -- supposedly with great impact on each of the three. Yet, as the story moves ahead 10 years to the 10-year anniversary of the death and a dedication of a scholarship in the dead student's name, there is no sense of a thriller. No one is trying to solve the murder -- or run from it. Instead, the book simply follows the lives of these three characters post graduation, each going their separate ways -- and yet, often finding themselves helping or thinking of the others. I found myself wondering many times where i the heck the story was going, and how it was going to end. And do not even get me started on the ending -- or lack thereof.
    • 4/5
      Charlie, Alice, and Georgia meet as freshman at Harvard University. Both Charlie and Alice vie for Georgia's attention and both are startled to discover that Georgia is having an affair with a much older professor, Rufus Storrow. Soon after the affair is revealed, Storrow is accused of murdering another female co-ed, just prior to their graduation. As the three part ways, Storrow is not formally charged and the crime remains unsolved for ten years. At the ten year anniversary of the student's murder, Storrow initiates contact with each of the ex-friends for reasons that are not immediately clear.I generally enjoyed this novel but it was sometimes hard to like the characters or even care too much about them. Each were deceptive and dishonest with each other and each seemed rather selfish overall. Still, I enjoyed the Harvard setting and the psychological aspects that played out through the psychopathy of Storrow and the Alice's mental illness. At times, I felt the novel wandered too far off course, as I had little interest in the multiple storylines that veered far away from the campus and the crime. However, it was an enjoyable read overall.
    • 3/5
      Bradstreet Gate was a good story about 3 Harvard students. Just before graduation, a classmate is murdered; a professor is suspected, but never charged. Although each goes their separate way, their interactions over the next ten years form the basis of the story. The plot was fine, as was the writing, but it wasn't the psychological thriller promised in the descriptions. My biggest problem with the book was the lack of a conclusion.
    • 2/5
      Being a mystery taking place at my alma mater, I really wanted to like this book. While the writing is ok, the novel/mystery attempts to be a sprawling epic with characters involved in complex lives and experiences after their escape from The Yard... where it seems a young professor, involved differently with each of our 3 protagonists, is to blame. Unfortunately, Kirman falls extremely short of this goal, leaving characters hanging along the way in incomplete experiences and failing to create a culmination to all of these ramblings. This has been compared to Donna Tartt, who succeeds in these complex sprawling stories, but other than a similar set of characters in a NE college in The Secret History, the comparison fails. This book could have used a few more iterations.ARC for review... but took a few attempts to complete.
    • 2/5
      If I am going to be honest, I struggled getting through this book. Though I do want to thank the publishers for an advanced copy of this book, it is not a book that I would highly recommend. I became lost as to who was talking and the time period that they were covering several times, and several threads that were throughout the book, were just left hanging. I guess overall, reading the synopisis of the book, I would have expected a different book. Again, thank you for the advance copy.
    • 2/5
      This story follows the lives of 3 students who met while studying at Harvard. It chronicles their time at school and the murder of one of their classmates and follows them into the future where the murder continues to haunt them. I thought the character development in this book was good, but was very disappointed in the end (or lack of end) to the story. The murder seems to play an integral part of where the story is going but in the end doesn't seem to really be what it was about. I was engaged while reading but near the end realized that I wasn't going to receive the resolution I was looking for. I was glad to have received this book from Library Thing Early Reviewer but don't know that I would recommend it to many people.
    • 3/5
      Just before reading Bradstreet Gate I had just finished reading Diane Thomas' In Wilderness, a book with intense characters and a tense plot. Bradstreet Gate had neither. Perhaps the juxtaposition of the two books is what made the latter seem especially bland. The story was about three self-absorbed Harvard students, a self-absorbed professor, and a murder. I probably would have put this book down early on if I hadn't been obligated to review it. The second half was a bit more interesting than the beginning, but by the end I was still very unsure of what the author was trying to get across.
    • 4/5
      I liked it but it had one of those unresolved endings which I can 't stand.