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Left Neglected
- Narrated by: Sarah Paulson
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Sarah Nickerson is like any other career-driven supermom in Welmont, the affluent Boston suburb where she leads a hectic but charmed life with her husband Bob, faithful nanny, and three children—Lucy, Charlie, and nine-month-old Linus.
Between recruiting the best and brightest minds as the vice president of human resources at Berkley Consulting; shuttling the kids to soccer, day care, and piano lessons; convincing her son’s teacher that he may not, in fact, have ADD; and making it home in time for dinner, it’s a wonder this over-scheduled, over-achieving Harvard graduate has time to breathe.
A self-confessed balloon about to burst, Sarah miraculously manages every minute of her life like an air traffic controller. Until one fateful day, while driving to work and trying to make a phone call, she looks away from the road for one second too long. In the blink of an eye, all the rapidly moving parts of her jam-packed life come to a screeching halt.
A traumatic brain injury completely erases the left side of her world, and for once, Sarah relinquishes control to those around her, including her formerly absent mother. Without the ability to even floss her own teeth, she struggles to find answers about her past and her uncertain future.
Now, as she wills herself to regain her independence and heal, Sarah must learn that her real destiny—her new, true life—may in fact lie far from the world of conference calls and spreadsheets. And that a happiness and peace greater than all the success in the world is close within reach, if only she slows down long enough to notice.
Editorial reviews
Wife, mother, and hyper-driven, multitasking Sarah Nickerson, a 37-year-old Harvard Business School grad, is so controlled she limits her crying to five minutes twice a month behind her office desk. She travels to China on business, and still signs permission slips on time. Left Neglected, by Lisa Genova, discerningly chronicles Sarah both before and after a devastating brain injury blots out the left side of her world. Actor Sarah Paulson, always an incandescent force, narrates here with such disarming openness that Left Neglected superficially about a preppy modern mommy of three finding grace through catastrophe gathers enough texture to unfold a richly moving rebirth.
Left Neglected is easy to latch onto, largely because Paulson projects Sarah Nickerson as endearingly insecure and goofy. By pebbling her pre-car crash, pre-head trauma Sarah voice with urgency and strain, Paulson revs up pacing to mirror the choking rhythms of her character’s hurried schedule. Yet the recovering Sarah is looser and less uncensored as Paulson unknots her anxious cadences in a gradual fade. We relax around this Sarah who cracks pun-laced jokes with her rehab therapists and grieves as deeply for the skinny jeans she can no longer button at the waist, as having to relearn using the bathroom alone.
While Left Neglected is Sarah’s story, Paulson astutely rescues the ensemble players Sarah’s jittery, apologetic mother Helen, and her innately decent husband Bob from the fringes. She pitches Bob as honorable and magnetic in his own right, a cool guy whose empathy eventually collapses into panicked resentment as Sarah’s lost income capsizes the family finances. Helen, on the other hand, begs to be Sarah’s rock, atoning for her indifference the last 30 years. “My life can be fully lived with less,” Sarah observes, well into her healing journey. And for us, too, this reclaimed state of blessedness feels lasting and true. Nita Rao
Critic Reviews
What listeners say about Left Neglected
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Grace C.
- 15-07-2023
Absolutely brilliant learnings
I have to say from the title I was a little bit nervous to start reading. Completely different from what I was expecting. Great narrative and character development. I’m grateful for the learnings, with profound respect for those who live with left neglect.
Thank you.
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- Vibeke Foss
- 13-12-2023
Love love love
As always, Lisa Genova has written an excellent book! The insight in to left neglect was compelling and eye opening. This is not one to be missed.
The narration by Sarah Paulson was exquisite! I could not have asked for more.
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