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Sign up todayScissors
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Learn moreBased on the life of the great short-story writer Raymond Carver, particularly his last ten, postalcoholic years, Scissors is that rare thing: a funny, compassionate, and convincing portrayal of the creative life—its compulsions, its rewards, its frustrations, its affinities with tragedy.
Raymond is a writer whose life is fraught with personal and creative struggle. His first marriage, to Marianne, is intense, passionate, and unhealthy. After his divorce, he finds new love and support with Joanne, a poet. All the while Raymond (and to some extent, each of his wives) is in an escalating conflict with his editor, Douglas, who both assists and distorts Raymond's work. As his success and confidence grow, Raymond strives harder and harder to ensure that his stories, the most important part of his life, are published as written. Douglas, who considers the stories as much his as Raymond's, is determined to present them in the heavily edited form he's given them. Four of Raymond's stories, given in full at four different points in the novel, reflect his life, his relationships, and the creative process itself; and then Douglas goes to work on them. Raymond's former alcoholism and his past and present relationships always lurk in the background, Marianne and Joanne offer their own perspectives on both, and in the end, after Raymond's death, Joanne finally confronts Douglas in a way that Raymond never could.
Stéphane Michaka was born in Paris in 1974. He studied at Cambridge University and taught French in South Africa before embarking on a writing career. He has written theater pieces, children’s books, television scripts, radio plays, and several novels.
Lloyd James (a.k.a. Sean Pratt) has been narrating since 1996 and has recorded over six hundred audiobooks. He is a seven-time winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award and has twice been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award. His critically acclaimed performances include Elvis in the Morning by William F. Buckley Jr. and Searching for Bobby Fischer by Fred Waitzkin, among others.
Kathe Mazur has narrated many audiobooks, winning the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2014, being named a finalist for the Audie Award in 2013 and 2015, and winning several AudioFile Earphones Awards. As an actress, she can be seen as DDA Hobbs on The Closer and in the upcoming Major Crimes. She has worked extensively in film, theater, and television, including appearances on Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, House, Brothers and Sisters, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, ER, Monk, and many others.
Scott Brick, an acclaimed voice artist, screenwriter, and actor, has performed on film, television, and radio. He attended UCLA and spent ten years in a traveling Shakespeare company. Passionate about the spoken word, he has narrated a wide variety of audiobooks. winning won more than fifty AudioFile Earphones Awards and several of the prestigious Audie Awards. He was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine and the Voice of Choice for 2016 by Booklist magazine.
Hillary Huber is one of the most successful voice talents in Los Angeles. Recent books read for Blackstone Audio include Him, Her, Him Again, the End of Him by Patricia Marx, A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read, and A Map of Glass by Jane Urquhart.
John Cullen is the translator of many books from Spanish, French, German, and Italian, including Margaret Mazzantini’s Don’t Move, Yasmina Khadra’s Middle East trilogy (The Swallows of Kabul, The Attack, The Sirens of Baghdad), Christa Wolf’s Medea, and Manuel de Lope’s The Wrong Blood. He lives in upstate New York.
Reviews
“Whether or not you know anything about Carver and his stories matters little. Stéphane Michaka’s talent and the attention he brings to each of his characters suffice to rivet the reader to his words. He breathes life into the trio as they revolve around the central figure of the writer, the man without certainties, whose work, although butchered by his editor, has been passed down to posterity.”
“Stéphane Michaka performs the prodigious feat of intertwining four biographies to produce a powerful reflection on literature itself.”
“Told from multiple viewpoints and including four of Ray’s stories, Scissors is a detailed and intimate exploration of one man’s life. Based on the life of Raymond Carver, Michaka’s version takes readers deep into the creative life. Funny, sad, and deeply compassionate, Scissors is a unique and engaging novel that ponders life, love, and the importance of believing in ourselves and in our chosen work.”
“Loosely based on the life of Raymond Carver, this book is more than a love triangle—it’s a love polygon?—of a writer, his work, his editor, his significant other, and alcohol…Daring and impressive.”
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