The Singularities cover art

The Singularities

A Novel

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The Singularities

By: John Banville
Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
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About this listen

From the revered Booker Prize-winning author comes a playful, multilayered novel of nostalgia, life and death, and quantum theory, which opens with the return of one of his most celebrated characters as he is released from prison.

“A triumphant piece of writing…Prose of such luscious elegance…Exhilarating.” —The New York Times Book Review


A man with a borrowed name steps from a flashy red sports car—also borrowed—onto the estate of his youth. But all is not as it seems. There is a new family living in the drafty old house: the Godleys, descendants of the late, world-famous scientist Adam Godley, whose theory of existence threw the universe into chaos. And this mystery man, who has just completed a prison sentence, feels as if time has stopped, or was torn, or was opened in new and strange ways. He must now vie with the idiosyncratic Godley family, with their harried housekeeper who becomes his landlady, with the recently commissioned biographer of Godley Sr., and with a wealthy and beautiful woman from his past who comes bearing an unusual request.

With sparkling intelligence and rapier wit, John Banville revisits some of his career’s most memorable figures, in a novel as mischievous as it is brilliantly conceived. The Singularities occupies a singular space and will surely be one of his most admired works.
Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Psychological Satire Thriller & Suspense
All stars
Most relevant
Excellent narrator, no quibble there.
But this a very bad novel.
Comes over like Ian Fleming with literary pretensions.
The Physics Conceit is risible.
Every note is false.
God is an old white male who perceives women as playthings of his old white men.
Urgh!

Jurassic Ark

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Beautiful story beautifully written though heartbreaking at times. Main character came to life to tell his story.

Wonderful book.

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