A Carnivore's Inquiry [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Sabina Murray (Author), Wendy Hoopes (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 19, 2004

Katherine, the winning and slightly disturbing twenty-three-year-old narrator of A Carnivore's Inquiry, journeys from literary New York to rural Maine and Mexico City trailed, everywhere she goes, by a string of murders. As the ritualistic killings begin to pile up, Katherine comforts and inspires herself by meditating on cannibalism in literature, art, and history, and examining a diverse array of subjects including the Donner Party and the fall of Dante's Count Ugolino. The story races toward a hair-raising conclusion, while Katherine, and the reader, close in on the reasons for her intrigue with aberrant, violent behavior.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Katherine Shea, a highly intelligent 23-year-old, may be the most unusual protagonist in recent fiction. After returning from a self-guided year of study in Italy, Katherine takes up with Boris, a middle-aged Russian novelist. When her affair with Boris bores her, Katherine escapes to Maine and then to Arizona, where she finds a box of bones bequeathed to her by her deranged mother. She continues to travel, but everywhere she goes, the people she meets end up dying. Reader Hoopes captures Boris's dolorous Russian accent and also the Maine burr and Southern twang of Katherine's subsequent lovers. But her biggest achievement is Katherine, an untethered and unreliable narrator. Hoopes's subtle rendering of Katherine's wily intelligence is impressive given how much Katherine conceals while she ingenuously relates her story. As the book wanders into stranger territory, Katherine distracts her audience with long, scholarly asides about art, literature, history and mythology, all dealing with a common theme: cannibalism. Hoopes tackles these passages with ease, adopting a haughty French accent for Katherine's rendition of the Tale of Bisclaveret and a macabre Italian voice for the Inferno's Count Ugolino. That Katherine's great secret remains inscrutable until the very end is a testament to Hoopes's light-handed interpretation of this twisted tale.
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From Booklist

Pursuit of the flesh reaches prickly proportions in this seductive thriller by PEN/Faulkner-winner Murray. After a year spent in Italy, 23-year-old free spirit Katherine Shea returns to the U.S and begins an affair with Boris, an unremarkable, middle-aged Russian novelist. Restless within the relationship, Katherine ventures out on her own, encountering two men who meet violent ends: one, the victim of a serial killer who bit a chunk out of his prey's cheek; the other, savaged by a coyote as he slept in his truck. Intrigued and disturbed by the slayings, Katherine begins to ponder cannibalism in literature and art, from the rapacious Count Ugolino in Dante's Inferno to the bloody tale behind Romantic painter Gericault's The Raft of the Medusa. The string of murders continues, revealing the truth--and consequences--of Katherine's preoccupation with the perverse. "Were we not all cannibals," she asks, "dispensing with the defenseless, concerned only with our own survival?" Not for the easily queasy, this is a dark meditation on the vagaries that dwell beneath civilization's veneer. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: HighBridge Company; Unabridged edition (July 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565118677
• ISBN-13: 978-1565118676
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,228,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars DARK AND DRAMATIC- BOTH THE STORY AND THE READING, September 20, 2004

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Carnivore's Inquiry: A Novel (Hardcover)

Dramatic, dark, disturbing - all describe this tale by Pen/Faulkner Award winner Sabina Murray. Stage, television, and film actress Wendy Hoopes gives articulate voice to 23-year-old narrator Katherine Shea.

Apparently lacking any form of moral compunction Katherine first befriends and then cohabits with Boris, an older Russian novelist. She hasn't wasted a great deal of time as she has only recently arrived in New York City from Italy. We already know that this gal is not one for settling down, what we have not yet discovered is that her taste for new adventure may border on the psychotic.

Her time with Boris is brief. She's soon seeking the company of other men and other places as she crosses the country and winds up in Mexico. She leaves in her wake a trail of dead bodies. Katherine's interests become increasingly macabre as she begins to research cannibalism wherever she may find it - in art, literature, research.

Why is this young woman so transfixed by behavior that repulses most? Listen as her story races to an astounding conclusion.

- Gail Cooke

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfectly dark and consuming, August 22, 2007

By 

D. Enochson "Just a person" (Dallas Tx) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Carnivore's Inquiry: A Novel (Hardcover)

I love this book. I've read it three times and I just bought another copy for a gift. It has everything I love in a novel. It's fantastically engrossing and the main character is so charming and bizarre. So many novels give away all the answers too early. These characters are as unpredictable as real people. The historical references are intriguing and cringe inducing. Every character has depth and motivation. You are equally fascinated and repulsed on every page. Each time I read it I am just as impressed by the writing and tantalized by the plot. I can't wait to read other books by this author.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but could have been better, August 15, 2004

By 

Seth_Saoirse (Jacksonville,FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Carnivore's Inquiry: A Novel (Hardcover)

I thought I would like this book more than I did, and I was disappointed. While Katherine Shea is a strong narrator with a penchant for describing the macabre. It's interesting but becomes too convoluted,despite this I liked her character and her often cutting insight into those around her..it was the plot that left a great deal to be desired.

We already know that something is "not quite right" with Katherine but any reader could see what was coming from a mile away, and it was the thought, that this was going to end differently or unexpectedly attracted me to the story. A Carnivore's Inquiry is a good book but I hope to see better in the future from such a talented author.