The Wanting Life: A Novel
About this audiobook
Father Paul, a gay priest, reflects on his life while his sister and niece grapple with the life choices they’ve made.
Set in Rome, Cape Cod, and Wisconsin over the course of the summer of 2009 and in Rome during the spring of 1970, The Wanting Life tells the intertwined story of three members of the Novak family: Father Paul, a closeted gay Catholic priest who’s dying of cancer and has secrets he desperately wants to share; Britta, his self-destructive sister and caretaker, who’s struggling to find meaning in a world without her beloved husband; and Maura, Britta’s daughter—a thirty-nine-year-old artist who’s facing a choice between her husband and two children or the man she believes is her one, true love.
Featuring one of most unconventional love stories you’ll read this year, The Wanting Life is both a compulsively readable family drama about the toll that secrets and loyalty can take on us and a gorgeous meditation on the comforts (and limits) of faith and intimacy that calls to mind novels like Marilynne Robinson’s Home, Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy, and Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending.
About the author
Mark Rader has had stories published in Glimmer Train, Epoch, and The Southern Review. He has been short-listed for an O. Henry Award, the Best American Non-Required Reading anthology, and a Pushcart Prize. He has an MFA in creative writing from Cornell University.
Donald Corren received his education at Juilliard. He has acted on and off Broadway, played a recurring role for nine seasons on NBC's Law & Order, as well as other television parts. Corren has also written for TV and corporate clients, including the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, and has narrated several audiobooks.
