Audiobook6 hours
Rose & Poe
Written by Jack Todd
Narrated by Nigel Patterson
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Set in mythical Belle Coeur County in a time not too far from our own, Rose Poe gloriously re-imagines Shakespeare's The Tempest from the point of view of Caliban and his mother.
Rose and her giant, simple son, Poe, live quietly on the fringes of their town-tending their goats and working at odd jobs. Prosper Thorne, banished from his big-city law practice and worrying about his fading memory, obsessively watches over his beloved daughter Miranda.
When Poe erupts from the forest one day carrying Miranda's bruised and bloody body, he is arrested, despite his protestations of get help-get help-get help. Overnight, Rose and Poe find themselves pariahs in the county where they have lived all their lives. In the face of bitter hatred and threats from her neighbors, the implacable Rose devotes all her strength to proving Poe's innocence and saving him from prison or worse.
Rose Poe is a tale of a mother's boundless love for an apparently unlovable child, and a stunning fable for our own troubled times. It will stick in your memory like sweet wild honey.
Rose and her giant, simple son, Poe, live quietly on the fringes of their town-tending their goats and working at odd jobs. Prosper Thorne, banished from his big-city law practice and worrying about his fading memory, obsessively watches over his beloved daughter Miranda.
When Poe erupts from the forest one day carrying Miranda's bruised and bloody body, he is arrested, despite his protestations of get help-get help-get help. Overnight, Rose and Poe find themselves pariahs in the county where they have lived all their lives. In the face of bitter hatred and threats from her neighbors, the implacable Rose devotes all her strength to proving Poe's innocence and saving him from prison or worse.
Rose Poe is a tale of a mother's boundless love for an apparently unlovable child, and a stunning fable for our own troubled times. It will stick in your memory like sweet wild honey.
Author
Jack Todd
Jack Todd is the author of the novels Sun Going Down and Come Again No More and the memoir Desertion, which won the Quebec Writer’s Federation First Book Prize and the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction. Visit his website at JackToddTheAuthor.com.
More audiobooks from Jack Todd
Sun Going Down Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come Again No More Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Rose & Poe
Related audiobooks
The Better Son Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Raft of Stars: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learning to Talk: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Turbulent Wake Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last Place Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Monstrous Duke and I Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stills: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Young Folks' Treasury, Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Summer People Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Fascination Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Woman of Noble Wit Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Portable Veblen Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Manningtree Witches Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Woman of the People Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Irish Fairy Tales Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Space and Time Magazine Issue #134: Issue 134 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Barn Blind Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Weird Black Girls: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lanny Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ecology of a Cracker Childhood: The World as Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mercy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Flooded: Requiem for Johnstown (Scholastic Gold) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Square of Sevens Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Snow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEight Cousins (Unabridged) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bones of Paradise: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diary of a Goose Girl Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKitty Alone: Unabridged Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Sagas For You
The Covenant of Water Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Godfather: 50th Anniversary Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Firefly Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Light Between Oceans: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unsheltered: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Other Eden Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dune: House Atreides Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Earth Remains: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Little Monsters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nantucket Nights: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sisters of Alameda Street: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bel Canto Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gospel of Loki Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Peace Like a River Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Children of Húrin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fall of Gondolin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dune: House Harkonnen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Banyan Moon: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary: A Little Life: A Novel By Hanya Yanagihara: Key Takeaways, Summary and Analysis Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Half a King Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dune: House Corrino Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kitchen House: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lost Queen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Where Good Girls Go to Die: The Good Girls Series, Volume 1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond the Rice Fields Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Corrections: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Divide: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Rose & Poe
Rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
4/5
5 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shakespearean plays focus exclusively on the nobility. Rustic, working class characters, if represented at all, were limited to the sidelines, basically acting as buffoons in the comedies. Author Jack Todd has opted to flip the script on “The Tempest” by moving Prospero (here known as Prosper Thorne) and the rest of the upper class characters to the margins, instead giving center stage to two possibly misunderstood characters - the sorceress Sycorax (aka Rose) and her monster son Caliban (Poe). In this day and age, where audiences more and more are demanding diversity and equal representation, Todd makes the case that the problems of the common man are arguably more interesting, and certainly more relatable, than those of the one-percenters. After all, Caliban was a slave, so it’s safe to assume he and his mother were defined by those who were in control the narrative. So it might be high time we re-considered this nasty woman and her half-caste offspring. This story centers on Rose, a dirt poor, sexually liberated, plus-sized single mother, and her gentle son Poe, a simple giant, who together eke out a living selling goat’s milk and doing odd jobs in a small town in upstate New York. Poe falls into unrequited love with Thorne’s beautiful daughter Miranda while building a stone wall around the retired lawyer’s property and is wrongfully accused of committing a violent crime against her. The townfolk automatically vilify him because of his mental disability and freakish appearance, but Rose fights to see him exonerated. While this is hardly a literal re-telling of “The Tempest,” anyone familiar with the original will recognize characters and plot points. Ariel has become Airmail, a courier and unofficial spy on a lightning fast Kawasaki Ninja. Stefano and Trinculo are Skeeter and Moe, two city boys attending a Fresh Air Fund type camp who spend their days following Poe’s enormous footprints, under the mistaken impression they’re on the trail of the mythical “Sasquank.” And of course, there’s a terrible storm that figures prominently in the dramatic action.This is a vastly entertaining book. The characters are believable and full of life. The story is engaging and, at times, suspenseful. Even if you aren’t familiar with the Shakespeare, Rose & Poe stands on its own as a captivating and uplifting story of dignity, loyalty and a mother’s love.