Tuesday, March 7, 2023

The Levee--William Kent Krueger

DEBORAH CROMBIE: We've talked a lot about audio books here on the blog lately (you all know it's one of my soapboxes!) Audio is the thing in publishing these days, and it's very fertile ground for authors to explore--as our very special guest today, WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER, will tell us. His audio novella, THE LEVEE, is just out and it's fabulous. Here's Kent with the story behind the project:



The Levee: A Literary Experiment

 

For the past several months, my publisher and I have been collaborating on a literary experiment. Last Tuesday, our work came to fruition. My novella The Levee was released by Simon and Schuster as an original audiobook. This has all been a completely new experience for me, and I’m still waiting to see the full outcome.

Why did I agree to be a part of this experiment? Here’s the main reason: I consider myself an artist. I believe all writers should think of themselves as artists, and words are our medium. If we do this, it means that we should always be trying to grow, to push our limitations, expand our reach. The Levee represents a new kind of storytelling for me, both in its length and in the venue of its offering.

Briefly, The Levee is set in the spring of 1927, during the worst flood in our nation’s history. In that spring, the lower Mississippi River spilled from its banks and covered more that 27,000 square miles with water up to thirty feet high. The river below Memphis, Tennessee, reached a width of eighty miles. In my story, at the height of this flood, four men are assigned the task of battling the treacherous river in a desperate attempt to rescue a family trapped by the rising waters.

This flood of Biblical proportions inspired William Faulkner’s classic novella The Old Man, which is the story of a convict conscripted to rescue a pregnant woman trapped by the raging river. I read that novella when I was in my mid-twenties. As with most of Faulkner’s work, I found the prose to be complex and difficult, but I also found the storyline compelling. As a young man dreaming of being a writer, I was inspired to create what I hoped might be a more accessible story of my own, which I titled “The Levee.” I never tried to get the story published. But, as every writer knows, you never throw anything away. So, I set the piece atop the pile of the other unpublished stories I’d written and moved on.

 In my mid-forties, still unpublished, I resurrected and reworked “The Levee” for a creative writing class I’d enrolled in at the University of Minnesota. Across the twenty intervening years, the heart of the piece had haunted me. I continued to be intrigued by the idea of an adventure story that probed deeper themes. The class and the instructor quite liked what I’d written, but the general consensus was that there was still a larger tale to be told. Again, I set the story aside.

In the long period of self-isolation that followed the descent of the pandemic in 2020, I entered one of the most productive periods of my life as a writer. I completed two novel-length manuscripts for my publisher, Atria Books, and drafted a couple of novellas. But I was still eager for more. So I reached into my vault of old, unpublished stories and pulled out “The Levee.”

Rather than merely rework that earlier attempt, I completely rethought the story. Maybe because I’ve been telling tales for a living for nearly a quarter of a century now, this new piece just seemed to flow from my imagination. For me, it became a story of the conundrum of both man and the natural world, the idea that each can behave in surprising ways and yet those surprises are predictably a part of the nature of each.

 When I announced the release of the novella, I got a lot of pushback from readers who insisted that they never listen to audiobooks. Holding a real book in their hands was the only way they wanted to access literature. If that’s the way the feel, it’s perfectly fine. But I’ve tried to point out to them that for countless millennia, long before the advent of written language and before the printing press made books accessible to the masses, storytelling was an oral tradition, and the storytellers were celebrated. Good stories are meant to fall trippingly off the tongue. I don’t know about other writers, but I always read my work out loud, both as I’m writing it and as I’m revising. I find that I can hear the clunk, the redundancies, the unnecessary words, the cadences that don’t quite work. It’s important to me to hear the flow of the story.

I’ve become a huge fan of audiobooks myself. Because I make a lot of speaking appearances across the country and because I’m not fond of flying, I drive thousands of miles every year. Just before I depart, I download audiobooks for the trip. Oh, my god, do the miles fly by when I’m listening to a good story read by a compelling narrator.

The question I’ve been asked most frequently is whether there will be a print version. I don’t know the answer. There aren’t a lot of platforms for a novella-length piece these days. Magazines such as Life that, in the old days, regularly published longer fiction, don’t exist anymore. And most publishers don’t consider a novella to be a viable length for print publication, unless it’s a part of a larger collection of work.

So, for the moment, The Levee is just available as an audiobook. Will this experiment succeed? In my own mind, it already has. I feel that I’ve grown as a writer, as an artist. So who knows? Maybe there will be more novellas down the road.

If you’d like to listen to an excerpt of the audiobook, here’s the link

DEBS: Let me just say that The Levee is absolutely gripping and if you're new to audio, this novella is a great place to start. It's available on many platforms--you don't have to have a subscription to listen.

Here's more about The Levee:

An audio original novella from the bestselling author of Ordinary Grace and This Tender LandThe Levee is a powerful, captivating story of a family, a storm, a complicated rescue, and the true cost of survival.

It’s 1927, and the most devastating flood in American history has swelled the Mississippi River to a width of eighty miles. In an attempt to save a family trapped by the rising water, four men in a tiny rowboat battle the treacherous flow: three are convicts, on loan from the local prison and pressed into service; the fourth, the leader of the team, is driven by his own hidden motives. But to their surprise upon arrival at Ballymore, an ancestral home protected by a high, circular levee, not everyone in the family feels the need to be saved. Pride, greed, loyalty, and even love create their own complex currents behind the massive wall. As the threat from the flood increases and time ticks away, the crew and the family must decide on a course of action, and a desperate plan is hatched to save the weakening levee and all it was built to protect.

The Levee is a propulsive, heartfelt tale of courage, cowardice, and sacrifice in a historic moment when the indomitable human spirit is pitted against the awesome and destructive power of nature.

And here's more about Kent (who is, I have to add, one of the nicest people in the mystery writing business, and I'm so tickled to have him on the blog!):



Raised in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, William Kent Krueger briefly attended Stanford University—before being kicked out for radical activities. After that, he logged timber, worked construction, tried his hand at freelance journalism, and eventually ended up researching child development at the University of Minnesota. He’s been married for nearly fifty years to a marvelous woman who is a retired attorney. He makes his home in St. Paul, a city he dearly loves.

Krueger writes a mystery series set in the north woods of Minnesota. His protagonist is Cork O’Connor, the former sheriff of Tamarack County and a man of mixed heritage—part Irish and part Ojibwe. His work has received a number of awards, including the Minnesota Book Award, the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award, the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, the Dilys Award, and the Friends of American Writers Prize. His last nine novels were all New York Times bestsellers.

Ordinary Grace, his stand-alone novel published in 2013, received the Edgar Award, given by the Mystery Writers of America in recognition for the best novel published in that year. The companion novel, This Tender Land, was published in September 2019 and spent nearly six months on the New York Times bestseller list.


DEBS: How about it, dear readers? Are you willing to give something new a try? Pretend you're sitting around then campfire... Then pop back in and visit with Kent, who will be here to chat!

68 comments:

  1. Congratulations, Kent, on your new book . . . . Although I mostly read books rather than listening to audio books, I listened to the excerpt and am intrigued enough to want to listen to the whole story . . . .

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    1. Thanks, Joan. I hope you do listen to the whole story, and I hope you enjoy it!

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  2. I'm completely with you on audio books making the miles fly by. Or, if you are stuck in traffic thanks to a commute, it makes the time when you are moving worth while.

    I appreciate a good story no matter how it is told to me, which includes books in their various forms, movies, and TV, too.

    This story definitely sounds good. I'll have to look for it next time I'm in the mood for an audiobook.

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  3. KENT: I'm so glad that the pandemic period was so productive for you. Yay for us readers!
    I do enjoy listening to an audiobook while doing chores or sometimes during long walks. The audio excerpt does tweak my interest to listen to the rest of THE LEVEE.

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    1. Lovely to hear that excerpt has intrigued you. Guess that's what they're for.

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  4. Good for you for challenging yourself, Kent, and congratulations on the audio novella! I see you shared narrating with someone else. How did that work? And did you study audio narration at all? It's not easy.

    I was also super productive during lockdown - it was such a respite from the horrible outside world of the time.

    I totally agree about audiobooks being a great partner to long solo drives. Otherwise I don't listen to them much. I hope yours makes a big splash!

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    1. Edith, Except for hearing the audition tapes for the audio (and indicating my preference) I had nothing to do with the narrator. J.D. Jackson does a terrific job. Good to hear that you found the pandemic productive. A silver lining in a terrible period.

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  5. Kent, I think I've read almost everything you've written that is a full length novel. I think that, although I generally don't listen to audio books, that I am tempted to try yours. Wishing you great success with it.

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  6. Welcome Kent! I bet we'll be listening to this on our way up the east coast this year!

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  7. Not just miles fly by when listening to audiobooks! Yesterday it was 73 here in Cincinnati, so I spent about seven hours out in the garden, cleaning up--and listening to an audiobook. Only my winter-sluggish muscles noticed the time passing.

    Kent, I'm a new fan of your writing, which I came to only recently, after seeing your engaging interview of Ellen Hart at Bouchercon. Congratulations on the novella.

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    1. I perpetually have an audiobook going. One of the strange things that I have found is that with an audiobook the brain seems to associate it with what you are doing at the time. Case in point - Harry Potter book 7 - I dug up the dahlias - why do I associate this - I have no idea!

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    2. That is so true, Margo. During the pandemic I put in most of our gardens at the "new" house, and I still get snippets of some of them coming back to me when I work outside. An interesting phenomenon.

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    3. This is true for me, also, much more so than with print books. Part of the different way our brains process spoken and read stories, I'll sure.

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    4. Karen, I too am new to Kent Krueger's books having met him in one of Hank's first Back Room events at the beginning of the pandemic. Irwin has also been enjoying his books.
      Margo, I listen to audiobooks constantly, too. As for associating audiobooks with certain activities, I am not too sure that that is happening here. But one thing I have noticed is a craving to re-listen to a particular audiobook from time to time. I wonder if it coincides with preparing a certain meal or baking a particular batch of cookies.

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    5. That's me, Judy, above. Blogger doesn't recognize me any more.

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    6. Audibooks are my companions when I travel, which is often. I don't listen when I'm working out or walking or doing other activities. When I'm just relaxing, I have a book in my hand.

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  8. Kent, congratulations on your experiment! Wishing you much success with THE LEVEE. I'm a big-time fan of your writing--especially your Cork O'Connor series (and discovered you right here on JRW). I have to say I think this experiment is sheer genius: 1) the novella form does not have many publishing outlets today and 2) it's the perfect length for an audiobook format, especially for people new to audiobooks. Short(er) attention span here these days, but that cover is fabulous too and would catch my attention even if I weren't familiar with your work.

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    1. Flora, I'm in LOVE with the audiobook cover. S&S always does a terrific job with the cover art of my work.

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    2. It is gorgeous, and so evocative!

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  9. Congratulations! A novella only in audio, perfect for long drives. I'll pitch my husband's beloved Wagnerian ring cycle and we'll listen to your novella instead.

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    1. Good luck, Margaret. I hope you can sell him on the idea!

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  10. The right reader can so enhance a book that I won't want to leave it, even when on a deadline for book club. CDs in the car make me a more patient driver. Right now, it's Michelle Obama and THE LIGHT WE CARRY. There is much communication through the nuance of voice, so much so that Donald Davis wrote WRITING AS A SECOND LANGUAGE, with methods that I used to help my writing students. One was to have them tell to a partner, then write, and then partners would help the writing achieve the power and clarity of the telling. I've told niblings with reading difficulties that audiobooks are every bit as "real" as any other means of accessing, maybe more so.

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  11. Congratulations, Kent. I think it's a great experiment. Audio books, for me, always hinge on the quality of the narrator.

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  12. Congratulations! Big fan here--I bought Ordinary Grace years ago because of the title and also loved This Tender Land. I'm now reading the O'Connor series in order and am currently enjoying Northwest Angle. I'm not much of an audible book person, but I'm sure I would enjoy this one.

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    1. It's okay if the audiobook isn't your cup of tea. I'm so happy to hear that you've enjoyed my other stories.

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  13. Congratulations on being brave enough to try a new format.
    Many of you may realize that audiobooks are my favourite format. The more I age, and the more my eyesight and brain fortitude decrease, audiobooks are becoming almost the only way I enjoy books. (I have a book book on the table to read for Book Club that is only available as a paper book. The font is too small, and the font colour is grey – it is impossible to read. I can spend $15 and order the ebook from Amazon, where I can change the font size and colour, but even that doesn’t please me too much. I may be a no-show for this meeting…) It seems that more and more I look for an author that has audiobooks available and read that author – no audio, no read. I know that it makes my booklist much shorter, but ‘needs must’.
    A good reader becomes a part of the reading pleasure. He/she becomes identifiable with the author, and quite possibly the various characters. Some authors can read their own books (Marion Todd – she does a great job), others can’t (Margaret Atwood – drones on and on). Others may be famous, but trade on that rather that becoming a nobody (Tom Hanks – just reads like Tom Hanks, but Dan Stevens from Downton Abby is fabulous). Unlike a movie where a character is personified for you, a good reader still lets your imagination run wild, and fill in your own blanks.
    I really appreciate it when a book is published in all three formats simultaneously. It opens the authors work up to everyone. In this day of more inclusivity, it is something to think about.
    I have a hold on your new book - #1 on 1 copy, wait time about 2 weeks. I have listened to many of your books that are available as audio – the rest will not be for me. Thanks for being brave and testing the market.

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    1. Margo, have you checked with your library? They may have the audio version, or at least an ebook that has enlargeable fonts.

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    2. Margo, Years ago I auditioned to read my own works. I didn't get the job. A good reader is a bit of a genius, to my way of thinking. Imagine creating unique voices for all the characters and maintaining those voices across an entire novel. Sheer genius.

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  14. Hank Phillippi RyanMarch 7, 2023 at 9:09 AM

    Standing ovation! You know I am a huge fan, and cannot wait to read this. (Do we still call it reading?). Did knowing it was going to be an audiobook change the way you wrote it? So wonderful to see you here today! Xxx

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    1. Hank, It's been way too long since we had a chance to sit down and catch up. I didn't write the novella with audio in mind, but I had a wonderful editor at S&S audiobooks who offered terrific suggestions for making the story more powerful for a listener. I followed her sage advice.

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  15. This book is so vivid that I know it's going to stay with me for a long time. I keep trying to wrap my mind around the Mississippi being 80 miles wide at one point in this historic flood!

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    1. Isn't that shocking? Just the logistics around trying to cross the river is enough to boggle the mind.

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    2. There are some great photos of the flood, the devastation, and the aftermath.

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    3. A good audiobook (or any book) should send you to the Internet to do research. That is part of the joy of reading and using it as a doorstep to broaden your mind.

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  16. Congratulations! I've loved all of your books and listening to this sample might just convince me to give audio books a try.

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    1. I hope you do the audiobook a listen, Judi. If you do, I hope you like it.

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  17. YES! YES! YES! I love audio books. Annnnd I just bought The Levee. I don't know if you remember meeting, Kent, but we were at the SW Florida Reading Festival in Fort Meyers together with Sonali Dev and Mark Greaney and others in March 2020 right before the pandemic hit. I was a fan of yours before but your charming personality made me a super fan :)
    You're so right about this new(ish) medium. I wrote three novellas last year that went to auction (!!!) for the audio rights and have done incredibly well as the demand for audio is huge -- especially in the shorter 2-4 hour range. I listen while walking my dogs, gardening, knitting, etc. I am so looking forward to listening to The Levee. Congratulations!

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    1. OMG, Jenn, just mentioned your novellas but didn't post it right away because the plumber arrived. LOL. Your novellas are terrific!

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    2. Huge congratulations, Jenn! So happy for your success. I hope our paths will cross again at another Festival.

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  18. William Kent Krueger, wonderful to see you on JRW! Congratulations on your latest artistic endeavor. The cover is terrific. I have listened to many novellas recently and think that they are perfect for an audiobook format. Last year, Jenn McKinlay released three novellas especially intended for audiobooks. Perhaps she'll tell that story. After your guest appearance in The Back Room, I began to look for your Cork O'Connor books and now my husband and I are reading them in order.

    I love audiobooks and listen constantly, frequently revisiting much-loved stories, now in audiobook form, that I have already read on paper. A good narrator soon becomes the voice that you hear in your head for beloved characters. Just recently, we spent a day on JRW discussing favorite narrators and audiobooks.

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    1. Sometimes I'll choose an audiobook simply because I know and appreciate the narrator's work. There are stories that for me are so associated with a specific voice. And happy to hear that you're reading my Cork O'Connor series!

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  19. I keep trying audio books, but I have mostly come to the conclusion that I am not an auditory learner. I find I miss pieces of the story if I listen while I am doing other things and my mind also wanders to other things if I try to just sit and listen. My favorite time to read is in bed at night and it never fails that I doze off and the audio just keeps going which results in a lot of backtracking to find my place.
    I looked The Levee up on my Libby app and it has a wait list of several months. I may add my name to the list and see how it goes.

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  20. Welcome to JRW, William!

    Congratulations on your latest literary endeavour. Audiobooks are wonderful for people who struggle to read due to dyslexia. Since I have been deaf for most of my life and started to hear again with my cochlear implants, I listen to unabridged books on tape AND read the book at the same time for auditory training.

    Levee is an interesting word. I was reading about people holding levee in their boudoir? and I wonder why there is a levee? Memo to self: look up the word "levee" in the dictionary.

    Diana

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    1. In my work, "levee" refers to a earthen breastwork built along a river for flood control. You see them often along rivers in south, but also anywhere a river is historically prone to flooding. I've never heard the term applied to anything happening in a boudoir. But it sounds intriguing.

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  21. Congratulations on plowing a new field! The concept of a novella on audiobook is great. I've tried audio books, but find my mind wanders down paths created, but not intended, by the author. I think a novella would be the perfect length.

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  22. I am SO excited to see Kent here - he's one of my literary heroes, and if you haven't read (or listened to) his body of work, you are missing out on some incomparable writing and storytelling. As for the format, I've heard a few other authors going direct to audio - John Scalzi has an audio-only series that is, I believe, three novella long now. The advent of e-publishing and audio publishing has opened up the landscape for writers, putting us almost back to the Golden Age of magazine fiction, where there was a ready market for everything from the short-short (we now have 100 word drabbles) to the short story, to the novelette (a title I love) and on to the novella, whose length vies with the shorter "novels" you can find self-pubbed these days.

    I have a question, Kent: did you write dialog as you would in print? Or did you write it as stage dialog, with unspoken descriptions?

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    1. Hey, Julia! Lovely to hear from you. I wrote this story as I would any other piece of fiction. Although I altered some of the text to better fit the audio medium, I changed none of the dialogue.

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  23. Such a good point, Kent, about, "storytelling was an oral tradition" and how reading ones work is so important to "hear the flow of the story." And I must say, the cover of The Levee simply stunning!

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  24. I love listening to books. Going to have a listen now... Thanks for visiting Jungle Red, Kent! I'm a longtime huge fan. An audionovella, why not! And what a great way to let a worthy shorter work see the light of day.

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    1. Hallie, I think my response was lost. So here goes another try. It's great to hear from you, and do hope you give the novella listen. But I also hope that we find ourselves on the same platform together again because you're always so much fun to be in conversation with (he said, ending the sentence with a preposition).

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  25. Hello, Hallie! I have two hopes: 1) That you do, in fact, give the novella a listen; and 2) That we find ourselves on a forum together again. You're always so fun to be in conversation with.

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  26. One last thing from me. I have 2 sons who are both audio learners - written and visual just does not cut it. One has a genius IQ and the other was not tested. We didn't want to know as we weren't about to make the kid any different that he was. Neither learned to read until about Grade 7, and then only because they had seen the movie and knew where the plot was going. Audiobooks make a whole world open to them.

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    1. Thank you for sharing this story, Margo. A success story.

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  27. I just had lunch with a friend. I had loaned him my copy of Ordinary Grace and he liked it so much that his book group read it and he's going to lead the discussion tonight :)

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    1. Thanks for loaning your copy, and please pass along my best wishes to him and his group tonight. I hope their discussion is a lively one.

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    2. Thanks Kent! I will text him.

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  28. I just went to my Audible account and used a credit to get The Levee. It's hard to find audio books that my husband likes, but this one fits the bill completely. He's interested in history and rivers, so how could it miss? The fact that it's a novella is a perfect length for listening to in the car. Now, if I can just wait until the next time we go somewhere together.

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  29. What a treat to have you here. I enjoy your books tremendously, have read them all, and introduced several friends to you. I appreciate your attitude about being an artist (I certainly agree that you are) and wanting to challenge yourself to grow. Whether or not I'll be able to hear The Levee is a question I won't be able to answer until I try. I'm dyslexic with a touch of auditory processing disorder, and my strongest learning style is visual/reading, because I can do it at my own speed. However, as others have said, I love your storytelling enough to give this a try. The story itself is intensely intriguing, and I look forward to checking out. Thanks so much for sharing your gift. ~Lynda

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  30. Lynda, I hope this works for you. If not, hang on. Down the road we may have traditional print version.

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    1. Thank you, I appreciate that. Best luck to you.

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  31. My husband and I (and now our across-the-street neighbor, at our recommendation) are all huge William Kent Krueger fans, and I’m delighted to hear that he made such great use of time afforded by the pandemic. I’m a relatively new consumer of audio books myself, but find them perfect for making short work of long drives and boring chores. And I’ve already downloaded The Levee to play during a weekend trip. So … YAY!

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  32. Dear William
    I have read every one of your books. My favorite is Ordinary Grace and I have read it three times and cherish my copy of the book. I loved listening to The Levee. I sincerely hope that it will appear in print as the story is one that should be preserved for all to read.

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