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The Man on the Third Floor

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The Man on the Third Floor

By: Anne Bernays
Narrated by: Paul Michael
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About this listen

Walter Samson is a successful book editor in post-World War II New York. He has more than enough money, an interesting wife, two smart children, and reason to believe he’s leading the good American life - until a chance meeting with Barry Rogers. Barry is blue-collar, handsome, single, and poor.

Walter is instantly drawn to Barry, and despite the considerable risks, installs him in the Samson’s three-story house on the Upper East Side, where the two men try to keep their amorous relationship secret.

Against a backdrop of McCarthy-era fear, with its doleful consequences and with society’s pervasive homophobia, Walter manages to alter the direction and course of his life, losing much but gaining more.

Anne Bernays is the author of over a dozen books, including Growing up Rich. Her writing has appeared in the Nation and The New York Times, among others.

©2012 Anne Bernays (P)2012 Blackstone Audio Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic Reviews

“It’s what Edith Wharton or Louis Auchincloss might have written had they been free to write about a middle-aged and apparently happy man who finds himself falling in love with another man.” (Michael Korda)
|“I just love this book. It’s my favorite of all her books by light-years.” (Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize–winning author)
"Bernays deftly articulates the difficulties faced by homosexuals during the McCarthy witch-hunt years…[She] explores a dramatic era in American history and the psyches of her characters with equal ease in this well-written and entertaining new novel." ( Publishers Weekly)

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Pleasantly surprised

The deep tone of the narrator and his pitch, drops and strength of voice gave this surprisingly open, non judgemental happy ending short story, something special.
Love is love, even in the 1950s.. worth the listen and relax

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