A haunting, provocative novel, You Feel It Just Below the Ribs is a fictional autobiography in an alternate twentieth century that chronicles one woman's unusual life, including the price she pays to survive and the cost her choices hold for the society she is trying to save.
Born at the end of the old world, Miriam grows up during The Great Reckoning, a sprawling, decades-long war that nearly decimates humanity and strips her of friends and family. Devastated by grief and loneliness, she emotionally exiles herself, avoiding relationships or allegiances, and throws herself into her work--disengagement that serves her when the war finally ends, and The New Society arises.
To ensure a lasting peace, The New Society forbids anything that may cause tribal loyalties, including traditional families. Suddenly, everyone must live as Miriam has chosen to--disconnected and unattached. A researcher at heart, Miriam becomes involved in implementing this detachment process. She does not know it is the beginning of a darkly sinister program that will transform this new world and the lives of everyone in it. Eventually, the harmful effects of her research become too much for Miriam, and she devises a secret plan to destroy the system from within, endangering her own life.
But is her "confession" honest--or is it a fabrication riddled with lies meant to conceal the truth?
A jarring and uncanny tale of loss, trauma, and the power of human connection and deception, You Feel It Just Below the Ribs is a portrait of a disturbing alternate world eerily within reach, and an examination of the difficult choices we must make to survive in it.
About the Author :
Jeffrey Cranor cowrites the Welcome to Night Vale and Within the Wires podcasts. He also cocreates theater and dance pieces with choreographer/wife Jillian Sweeney. They live in New York.
Janina Matthewson is the author of the novel Of Things Gone Astray and the novella The Understanding of Women. She cowrites Within the Wires, and has also written for Murmurs, The Cipher, and Passenger List. Originally from New Zealand, she now lives in London.
Kirsten Potter has won several awards, including more than a dozen AudioFile Earphones Awards and been a three-time finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. Her work has been recognized by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and by AudioFile magazine, among many others. She graduated with highest honors from Boston University and has performed on stage and in film and television, including roles on Medium, Bones, and Judging Amy.
Adepero Oduye is a Nigerian American actress who was born in Brooklyn, New York. She is a graduate of Cornell University and has studied acting with Wynn Handman, Austin Pendleton, and Susan Batson. Oduye first starred as Alike in the award winning short film Pariah. Among other shorts she has starred in Water, The Tested, and Sub Rosa. She has also made guest appearances on such television programs as Louie and two Law & Order series.
Review :
"In this audiobook, the authors, cowriters of the Within the Wires podcast, have fashioned an expansive alternative-twentieth-century global history...Narrator Adepero Oduye seamlessly inserts explanatory notes throughout the story, which help listeners evaluate the reliability of Miriam's recollections."
-- "AudioFile"
