Kevin Wilson has 7 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 11 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 42 ratings. The most-rated is Nothing to See Here.
Nothing to See Here
Summary
A 2020 Audie winner - best female narrator A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! Audiobook performed by Marin Ireland. "I can’t believe how good this book is.... It’s wholly original. It’s also perfect.... Wilson writes with such a light touch.... The brilliance of the novel [is] that it distracts you with these weirdo characters and mesmerizing and funny sentences and then hits you in a way you didn’t see coming. You’re laughing so hard you don’t even realize that you’ve suddenly caught fire." (Taffy Brodesser-Akner, New York Times Book Review) Kevin Wilson’s best book yet - a moving and uproarious novel about a woman who finds meaning in her life when she begins caring for two children with remarkable and disturbing abilities. Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. But then, Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal, and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help. Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family, and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: The twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Lillian is convinced Madison is pulling her leg, but it’s the truth. Thinking of her dead-end life at home, the life that has consistently disappointed her, Lillian figures she has nothing to lose. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other - and stay cool - while also staying out of the way of Madison’s buttoned-up politician husband. Surprised by her own ingenuity yet unused to the intense feelings of protectiveness she feels for them, Lillian ultimately begins to accept that she needs these strange children as much as they need her - urgently and fiercely. Couldn’t this be the start of the amazing life she’d always hoped for? With white-hot wit and a big, tender heart, Kevin Wilson has written his best book yet - a most unusual story of parental love.
©2019 Kevin Wilson (P)2019 HarperAudio
The Family Fang
Summary
Mr. and Mrs. Fang called it art. Their children called it mischief. Performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang dedicated themselves to making great art. But when an artist's work lies in subverting normality, it can be difficult to raise well-adjusted children. Just ask Buster and Annie Fang. For as long as they can remember, they starred (unwillingly) in their parents' madcap pieces. But now that they are grown up, the chaos of their childhood has made it difficult to cope with life outside the fishbowl of their parents' strange world. When the lives they've built come crashing down, brother and sister have nowhere to go but home, where they discover that Caleb and Camille are planning one last performance - their magnum opus - whether the kids agree to participate or not. Soon, ambition breeds conflict, bringing the Fangs to face the difficult decision about what's ultimately more important: their family or their art. Filled with Kevin Wilson's endless creativity, vibrant prose, sharp humor, and keen sense of the complex performances that unfold in the relationships of people who love one another, The Family Fang is a masterfully executed tale that is as bizarre as it is touching.
©2011 Kevin Wilson (P)2011 Audible, Inc.
Perfect Little World
Summary
When Isabelle Poole meets Dr. Preston Grind, she's just about out of options. She recently graduated from high school and is pregnant with her art teacher's baby. Her mother is dead, and her father is a drunk. The art teacher is too much of a head case to help raise the child. Izzy knows she can be a good mother, but without any money or prospects she's left searching. So when Dr. Grind offers her a space in The Infinite Family Project, she accepts. Housed in a spacious compound in Tennessee, she joins nine other couples, all with children the same age as her newborn son, to raise their children as one extended family. Grind's theory is that the more parental love children receive, the better off they are. This attempt at a utopian ideal - funded by an eccentric billionaire - starts off promising: Izzy enjoys the kids, reading to them, and teaching them to cook. She even forms a bond with her son more meaningful than she ever expected. But soon, the gentle equilibrium among the families is upset, and it all starts to disintegrate: Unspoken resentments between the couples begin to fester; the project's funding becomes tenuous; and Izzy's feelings for Dr. Grind, who is looking to expunge his own painful childhood, make her question her participation in this strange experiment in the first place. Written with the same compassionate voice, disarming sense of humor, and quirky charm that made The Family Fang such a success, Perfect Little World is a poignant look at how the best families are the ones we make for ourselves.
©2017 Kevin Wilson (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Baby, You're Gonna Be Mine
Summary
In Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine, Kevin Wilson’s first story collection in nearly a decade, Wilson combines his signature quirkiness with his keen eye for emotional complexity to explore the fraught relationship between parents and children. “Wildfire Johnny” is the story of a man who discovers a magic razor that allows him to travel back in time. “Scroll Through the Weapons” is about a couple taking care of their underfed and almost feral nieces and nephews. “Signal to the Faithful” follows a boy as he takes a tense road trip with his priest. And “Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine”, the title story, is about a narcissistic rock star who moves back home during a rough patch. These stories all build on each other in strange and remarkable ways, showcasing Wilson’s crackling wit and big heart. Filled with imagination and humor, Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine is an exuberant collection of captivating and charmingly bizarre stories that promise to burrow their way into your heart and soul.
©2018 Kevin Wilson (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers
The Family Fang
Summary
Mr and Mrs Fang called it art. Their children called it mischief. Performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang dedicated themselves to making great art. But when an artist's work lies in subverting normality, it can be difficult to raise well-adjusted children. Just ask Buster and Annie Fang. For as long as they can remember, they starred (unwillingly) in their parents madcap pieces. But now that they are grown up, the chaos of their childhood has made it difficult to cope with life outside the fishbowl of their parent’s strange world. When the lives they’ve built come crashing down, brother and sister have nowhere to go but home, where they discover that Caleb and Camille are planning one last performance, 'their magnum opus', whether the kids agree to participate or not. Soon, ambition breeds conflict, bringing the Fangs to face the difficult decision about what’s ultimately more important: their family or their art. Filled with Kevin Wilson's endless creativity, vibrant prose, sharp humor, and keen sense of the complex performances that unfold in the relationships of people who love one another, The Family Fang is a masterfully executed tale that is as bizarre as it is touching.
©2011 Kevin Wilson (P)2012 Audible Ltd
Bomber Boys
Summary
A gripping account of the everyday heroism of British bomber crews in 1943 - the year when Bomber Command believed it could win WWII by bombing alone. In 1943 the RAF began a bombing campaign against Germany, the likes of which had never before been seen. Over the next 12 months, tens of thousands of aircrews flew across the North Sea to drop their bombs on German cities. They were opposed not only by the full force of the Luftwaffe but by a nightmare of flak, treacherously icy conditions and constant mechanical malfunction. Most of these crews never finished their tour of operations but were either shot down and killed or taken prisoner by an increasingly hostile enemy. Kevin Wilson has interviewed hundreds of former airmen about what their lives were like in 1943: the stomach-churning tension of flying repeatedly over hostile territory, the terror at being shot down or captured and the peculiar mixture of guilt and pride at unleashing such devastation on Germany. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio on our Desktop Site.
©2019 Kevin Wilson (P)2019 Orion Publishing Group
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth
Summary
A debut short story collection in the tradition of writers like Kelly Link, Aimee Bender, and George Saunders - strange, imaginative, and refreshingly original - now on audio as part of Ecco’s Art of the Story Series, and with a new introduction from the author. Kevin Wilson’s characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. “Grand Stand-In” is narrated by an employee of the Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider - a company that supplies “stand-ins” for families with deceased, ill, or just plain mean grandparents. And in “Blowing Up on the Spot”, a story singled out by Ann Patchett for Ploughshares, a young woman works sorting tiles at a Scrabble factory after her parents have spontaneously combusted. Southern gothic at its best, laced with humor and pathos, these wonderfully inventive stories explore the relationship between loss and death and the many ways we try to cope with both.
©2009 Kevin Wilson (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers