William Humphrey has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators. The most-rated is The Spawning Run.
Home from the Hill
Summary
National Book Award Finalist: The mesmerizing saga of a Texas family torn apart by passion and pride. Twelve years after Hannah Hunnicutt was committed to a Dallas asylum, her body is brought home to northeast Texas to be buried alongside those of her husband and son. Etched on all three gravestones is the same date of death: May 28, 1939. Home from the Hill is the story of that tragic day and the dramatic events leading up to it. The biggest landowner in the county, Captain Wade Hunnicutt was a charismatic war hero whose legendary hunting skills extended to the wives of his friends and neighbors. Humiliated by her husband's philandering, Hannah grew to despise Captain Wade but was too proud to ask for a divorce; instead, she devoted herself to her only child. Torn between his mother's adoration and an overwhelming need to win his father's approval, Theron tried to become his own man. And he might have succeeded if he hadn't fallen in love with the beautiful and innocent Libby Halstead. William Humphrey's dazzling debut novel, the inspiration for a major motion picture starring Robert Mitchum, is a masterpiece of twentieth-century American literature, as intense and thrilling as the Hunnicutts themselves.
©1957, 1985 William Humphrey (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
No Resting Place
Summary
A Scottish-Cherokee boy accompanies his grandparents on the Trail of Tears in this “superb” novel by the New York Times best-selling author of The Ordways (Time). Twelve-year-old Amos Ferguson is a blond, blue-eyed boy of mixed Cherokee and Scottish heritage, the son of a physician and the grandson of a gentleman farmer. Despite wealth and education, however, the family has no recourse when a drifter forges a bill of sale to their plantation: Georgia state law forbids anyone with Native American blood from testifying in court. Amos and his grandparents are relocated to a squalid internment camp and forced to join their tribe on a long and brutal march to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. Along the way, the doctor’s son tends to the sick as thousands perish from disease, starvation, and exhaustion. In the Republic of Texas, he bears witness to the doomed last stand of Chief Bowles and his band of Cherokee, who refuse to sacrifice the lands promised them by Sam Houston. More than a century later, Amos’ great-great-grandson narrates the story of his ancestor’s harrowing journey and heroic survival, in “a novel every American should be required to read” that brings a shameful chapter of US history to life (Los Angeles Times). From the National Book Award-nominated author of Home from the Hill and Farther Off from Heaven, No Resting Place “is more than one boy's story; it is the story of a nation dispossessed and brought to its knees by the greed and power of another” (Library Journal).
©1989 William Humphrey (P)2019 Audible, Inc.
Farther Off from Heaven
Summary
William Humphrey’s acclaimed memoir is a richly detailed portrait of small-town Texas and a poignant account of the tragedy that shaped the author’s life. At three o’clock in the morning on July 5, 1937, William Humphrey awoke to his mother’s urgent cry: "Get dressed as quick as you can! Your daddy has been hurt." Rushing to the doctor’s office, mother and son arrived to find Clarence Humphrey battered beyond recognition: his chest crushed, his face bruised black and caked with blood, his teeth shattered. He soon drew his final breath. In that terrible moment, 13-year-old William knew that nothing would ever be the same again: "I felt slip from me in that moment not only the certainty of my future but the fixity of my past. It was as if I had been wakened out of my childhood." He moved with his mother to Dallas soon after, and although he set his classic novels, Home from the Hill and The Ordways, in his hometown of Clarksville, he would not return for 32 years. A masterpiece of autobiography, Farther Off from Heaven is the fiercely honest, exquisitely crafted story of William Humphrey’s childhood and the sudden end of his innocence.
©1977 William Humphrey (P)2019 Audible, Inc.
The Spawning Run
Summary
William Humphrey’s delightful chronicle of an angling holiday in Wales celebrates two equally astonishing creatures: the Atlantic salmon and the British fly fisherman In order to mate in the same freshwater stream where it was spawned, the salmon swims 1,000 miles or more and overcomes countless obstacles, from trawling nets to 12-foot-high waterfalls. To catch the King of Fish at the end of its incredible journey, the Anglo-Saxon angler subjects his pride, his bank account, and his taste buds - poached milk, anyone? - to similar dangers. Nine out of 10 salmon do not make it back to the sea once their spawning run is finished; nine out of 10 sportsmen return to the hotel empty handed when the fishing day is done. And yet, year after year, they return to the rivers and streams of Great Britain - fish and angler both. Why? Perhaps “poor Holloway”, who has yet to land a salmon after 20 spawning seasons but whose success rate with the bored wives of more skillful fisherman is scandalously impressive, knows the answer. An elegant blend of fishing narrative, travelogue, and character study, The Spawning Run is a hilarious and heartfelt tribute to the irresistible passions that unite us all: man, woman, and salmon.
©1970 William Humphrey (P)2019 Audible, Inc.