Broken People: A Novel
Written by Sam Lansky
Narrated by Sam Lansky
4/5
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About this audiobook
Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine, Parade, Library Journal, Harper’s Bazaar and more
“Profound and affecting.”—Chloe Benjamin
“Broken People leads us through the winds of time and memory to offer a riveting portrait of transformation. I am better for having read it.”—Jamie Lee Curtis
A groundbreaking, incandescent debut novel about coming to grips with the past and ourselves, for fans of Sally Rooney, Hanya Yanagihara and Garth Greenwell
“He fixes everything that’s wrong with you in three days.”
This is what hooks Sam when he first overhears it at a fancy dinner party in the Hollywood hills: the story of a globe-trotting shaman who claims to perform “open-soul surgery” on emotionally damaged people. For neurotic, depressed Sam, new to Los Angeles after his life in New York imploded, the possibility of total transformation is utterly tantalizing. He’s desperate for something to believe in, and the shaman—who promises ancient rituals, plant medicine and encounters with the divine—seems convincing, enough for Sam to sign up for a weekend under his care.
But are the great spirits the shaman says he’s summoning real at all? Or are the ghosts in Sam’s memory more powerful than any magic?
At turns tender and acid, funny and wise, Broken People is a journey into the nature of truth and fiction—a story of discovering hope amid cynicism, intimacy within chaos and peace in our own skin.
Editor's Note
‘Open soul surgery’…
Sam, depressed and neurotic, is struggling with the follow-up to his successful addiction memoir. So, when he overhears at a dinner party that there’s a globetrotting shaman who professes to fix “everything that’s wrong with you in three days” via “open soul surgery,” he jumps at the opportunity. An enthralling, transformative read.
Sam Lansky
Sam Lansky is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir The Gilded Razor and the West Coast editor at Time magazine. He’s written for New York magazine, The Atlantic, Esquire and Out. He lives in Los Angeles, California.samlansky.com
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Reviews for Broken People
65 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The audiobook suffered from the author reading the book. He reads okay for an average reader, but doesn't change his voice for different characters making the listen too monotone to finish. I hope he will rerelease the audiobook with a professional. It's worth the expense, because it can't be recommended as is.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A book I wanted to hear all the way through. I sped up the setting of the audiobook and the author sound vivacious.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Dont know what i expected out of a book calles broken ppl but this book is just so miserable and painful and no thanks. Life is too short to be this miserable.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book touched me in a really deep place. It was almost scary to me, how much I could resonate with so much of Sam‘e experience, even though my own, on paper is just completely different. But I guess that’s just one of those strange human things...
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Narrator Sam's voice can be so painfully neurotic and frustrating and irritating, yet by the end of the novel I came to love him a little just as he came to love himself a little.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Fun use of psychedelic drugs. However, if Lena Dunham's self-obsession was funnelled into a gay man then this is the book she would write. (NB: One might think a reference to Lena Dunham is a compliment, it is not) This book is the worst episode of Girls for 7 hours.