The Go-Between

“Narrator Sean Barrett brings his range and sensitivity to this classic coming-of-age novel in which an older man rediscovers his childhood diary. Barrett’s natural rhythm contemporizes any anachronisms, and his ability to shift between the weariness of the elderly protagonist and the curiosity and vibrancy of the youth he remembers sounds effortless. As the novel journeys into the heartaches of adolescence, Barrett uses his considerable experience to retain the sense of clandestine intimacy that comes with the writing of a diary. Never overstating emotion, Barrett’s reading lulls the listener into a sense of security, making the dramatic events that follow all the more dynamic. He perfectly echoes Hartley’s tone—seamlessly weaving romance, drama, and the verve of youth in this timeless Victorian story.” —AudioFile

“Exuding such a sense of summer the pages might be warm to touch, Hartley’s coming-of-age tale is set during the heatwave of 1900. It all ends in tears, but not before there have been plenty of cucumber sandwiches on the lawn.” —Observer (London)

“I can’t stop recommending to anyone in earshot L. P. Hartley’s The Go-Between…[with] one of the fabled opening lines in modern literature: ‘The past is a foreign country: They do things differently there.’” —New York Magazine

“The first time I read it, it cleared a haunting little spot in my memory, sort of like an embassy to my own foreign country…The boy who leaves Brandham is not the one who came. Indeed the narrator converses with his old self as though he were two people. That was the powerful gonging left by my first read: What, if anything, bundles us through time into a single person?” —NPR