Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Foe: A Novel
    Foe: A Novel
    Foe: A Novel
    Audiobook5 hours

    Foe: A Novel

    Written by Iain Reid

    Narrated by Jacques Roy

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    *Now a major motion picture starring Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal*

    A taut, psychological thriller from Iain Reid, “one of the most talented purveyors of weird, dark narratives in contemporary fiction” (Los Angeles Review of Books).

    Severe climate change has ravaged the country, leaving behind a charred wasteland. Junior and Henrietta live a comfortable if solitary life on one of the last remaining farms. Their private existence is disturbed the day a stranger comes to the door with alarming news.

    Junior has been randomly selected to travel far away from the farm, but the most unusual part is that arrangements have already been made so that when he leaves, Henrietta won’t have a chance to miss him. She won’t be left alone—not even for a moment. Henrietta will have company. Familiar company.

    Told in Iain Reid’s sparse, biting style, Foe is a “mind-bending and genre-defying work of genius” (Liz Nugent, author of Unraveling Oliver) that will stay with you long after you turn the final page.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateSep 4, 2018
    ISBN9781508245308
    Author

    Iain Reid

    Iain Reid is the author of the critically acclaimed comic memoir One Bird's Choice, which won the CBC Bookie Award for Best Nonfiction Book. His writing has appeared in newspapers, magazines, and online in publications such as the Globe and Mail, Reader's Digest, and The Classical. He writes regularly about books and writing for the National Post. His work has also appeared on CBC Radio and NPR. He lives in Kingston, Ontario.

    Related to Foe

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Terrify Yourself with These Ten Horror Novels

      Jun 19, 2019

      A list of books so scary you definitely won't keep them on your nightstand. The post Terrify Yourself with These Ten Horror Novels appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      How To Install Your First Widget

      Feb 9, 2021

      > As you would expect with Apple, the company has made installing widgets in iOS 14 a piece of cake. Your device will come with Apple apps that have their own widgets ready to go, although you might have to launch third-party apps at least once befor

      1 min read

    • Article

      Just Trust Me: In Praise Of Strange Books

      Dec 23, 2017

      Author Victoria Schwab says she loves the books that can't be categorized, that fall between library-shelf categories, and that spark passionate debate among readers who either love them or hate them.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Begin Again

      Jun 14, 2022

      My grandfather came to live with me. There was nowhere else for him to go. What had happened to all his children? Death, decay, exile—I hardly know. My own parents died of pain. But I must not be too gloomy, at the beginning, or you will leave me, an

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Girl I Knew Somewhere

      Dec 2, 2021

      The Girl I Knew Somewhere
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Phone Call

      Dec 1, 2022

      The Phone Call
      7 min read

    • Article

      I’ll Burn You Alive

      Aug 19, 2021

      I’ll Burn You Alive
      5 min read

    • Article

      Coming To Terms

      May 25, 2021

      Coming To Terms
      14 min read

    • Article

      Recapturing the Spark

      Sep 10, 2023

      “Hair straight or curly?” She asked this, standing in the doorway of their bathroom. The light shined from behind her, and for a moment, with one hand on her hip and the other resting on her bare breast, Christine looked like the statue of a Greek go

      13 min read

    • Article

      Sleeper Hit

      Feb 5, 2024

      Sleeper Hit
      17 min read

    • Article

      Who Had I Married?

      Feb 15, 2024

      Who Had I Married?
      4 min read

    • Article

      Proverbs Of A Faceless Time

      Dec 1, 2023

      Proverbs Of A Faceless Time
      9 min read

    • Article

      Kiss, Kiss

      Aug 31, 2017

      Kiss, Kiss
      2 min read

    • Article

      Haunted

      Sep 27, 2023

      Haunted
      6 min read

    • Article

      Counting

      Feb 12, 2021

      Counting
      18 min read

    • Article

      Come with Me

      Dec 1, 2022

      Come with Me
      12 min read

    • Article

      Dirtnap

      Dec 15, 2019

      I was staying at Jean’s apartment in LA for two months to escape an especially dire Oregon winter and to test how much weight our relationship could bear. We had been conducting a long-distance romance for nearly a year then, back-and-forth visits an

      24 min read

    • Article

      Side Gig

      Aug 8, 2019

      Side Gig
      6 min read

    • Article

      We Don't Talk About That Here

      Nov 4, 2021

      We Don't Talk About That Here
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Red KIMONO

      Jul 5, 2023

      The Red KIMONO
      6 min read

    • Article

      In a Silent Way

      Nov 25, 2023

      In a Silent Way
      3 min read

    • Article

      This Strange Ballet

      Mar 21, 2022

      This Strange Ballet
      5 min read

    • Article

      Nuclear

      Oct 7, 2021

      Nuclear
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Foe

    4/5

    702 ratings43 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Well constructed with an eerie pace and thematic similarity to Asimov or Dick. A bit predictable, and stretched out to be a novel, but an easy, thought-provoking read nonetheless.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      slow burn despite length of book
      Science Fiction (futuristic)
      Marriage
      Creepy
      Unexpected twist
      Would recommend to SF readers

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Unsettling and subtle sci-fi that makes you feel slightly off-kilter.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Great narration hence 4 stars instead of 3 !! When it comes to the book itself , it has 2 strong points- the beginning and the end. The middle could have been so much more exciting and thought-provoking but instead it fell flat and felt very pseudo-deep and like a prolonging of the conclusion (which, let's be honest, was predictable ... ) *** SPOILER ALERT *** i really disliked the real junior so I'm kinda glad H left while leaving an imposter behind ??‍♀️ I think that made this worth the while

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Audiobook was riveting from the start. Great mysterious tale has element of strangeness, horror, science fiction. Held my attention as few stories do. Will definitely read the author’s other book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I loved this book! Weird, thought provoking, & touching. My kind of Science Fiction.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Another philosophical thriller by Iain Reid.
      This revolves around the complexities of marriage and long committed relationship. It also tackles the themes of isolation, contentment and aversion to change.
      I also like the scientific possibilities this one told.

      The Title is Perfect. An indirect double entendre.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I found this strange and interesting look at what makes us human.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Really good! Creepy with slow burning suspense. Great narrator. I kept thinking about this book for days after I finished.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I suggest reading this over listening to it as the audiobook lacks the grammatical differences that you need to see to get the point of the ending.

      This is a very high 3 stars. If it had been more creepy and ominous (cough like his first book cough) this definitely could have been a 4 or 5.

      Otherwise this is an Iain Reid and I ain’t gonna say shit about it cuz you should read it.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      It was weird, sinister, unnerving, uncomfortable. A slow burn of a book, not a typical thriller but very thought provoking.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I loved everything about it. The thrill!! I finished it in a day. And the narration was commendable.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed the subtlety of this book. The pacing was great so that the eerie, wrongness of things crept up on you. Loved it.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      You know something is off about her husband but you cant put your finger on it. And from his perspective, you’re trying to figure out why his wife and their guest behave in odd ways when no one is watching. What the hell is going on? Keeps you sucked in till the last page, loved the ending!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Um livro que te deixa na dúvida todo o tempo e que consegue deixar na dúvida mesmo no fim
    • 4/5
      A little over stretched in the middle. But the execution of the last few chapters, even if you can see it coming, is excellent, worth the wait.
    • 5/5
      This book is really good. It was very interesting to see how things turned out. I was mad at Terrance for a while. Book was really good over all.
    • 4/5
      A interesting take on AI vs human experience, kept my interest and left me with questions since it's such a short book
    • 3/5
      Strange story that grew boring. Ending not totally surprising. Not recommended.
    • 2/5
      Very anticlimactic - like they skipped the whole part where her actually leaves.
    • 5/5
      This is my kind of weird! There's something wrong with everyone in my opinion, but what's real and what is ordinary?
    • 5/5
      This book is so depressing yet so gripping. I couldn't put it down. The story reminded me a lot of Black Mirror which is one of my favourite shows. I also loved I'm thinking of ending things so I will definitely be checking out more of Mr. Reid's works.
    • 3/5
      The story was good, I really like the concept. There was too much internal monolog which frankly, made it boring. I’m not completely turned off of the author, but he’s lost some points.
    • 3/5
      It was ok. The story was interesting but also very predictable.
    • 1/5
      This was awful. Extremely slow and the wife is a horrible person.
    • 5/5
      Very few books surprise me anymore. This book surprised me. I did not see that coming. Excellent story and excellent narration. This has been my favorite audiobook of the year so far.
    • 5/5
      I feel like this might be a book that divides people, but in the end I really liked this. I'd read Reid's debut book, so I knew what to expect going into this.

      There's always a risk at slipping into being gimmicky, and I usually prefer straight forward text. So from the start, I was a little wary because of the use of the quotation marks in dialogue. However, a little goes a long way and it ended up working as a nice little flavoring, as there weren't any other typographical tricks in the book.

      I caught on to the twist pretty early on, which was probably the whole point what with all the hinting at it, but what I didn't really guess was where the author was going to end the story. Personally, I loved the ending, even more so than with "I'm Thinking of Ending Things".

      This is one of those books where I loved the writing, but I'm not quite sure why. Something about how crisp and effective it was. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on any future work of Reid's.
    • 2/5
      I was really expecting to be creeped out and/or unsettled by this one, but mostly I was just confused. The premise made me think this one would be a winner for me: man essentially gets drafted into some sort of vaguely-described space program where he'll be taken away from his wife for a long period of time. So the company in charge of all this barges into their lives and says they'll be studying this man's movements, demeanor, habits - everything - so they can make a lifelike replica of him to keep his wife company while he's away. And once the company gets rolling, the man and his wife are almost never left alone to talk about what is going on. So that seems cool. Only, it was equal parts boring and confusing. I didn't like Junior or his wife Hen, and I didn't care what was happening to them. In fact, they didn't seem to care about what was happening either. As I neared the end and figured out the twist, their apathy became more understandable, but I wish everything had been done cleverly. All the conversations in the book seem stilted, incomplete, and almost out of left field. The characters weren't really fleshed out and there wasn't even really a spooky atmosphere. There were a few scenes with like...horned beetles? Those made no sense and I'm not sure if they were supposed to be spooky. There was also a small bit of body horror involving dental floss. But otherwise, I wasn't creeped or unsettled by this. There was an extra twist at the end that also kind of left me scratching my head.Overall, this was a big disappointment and not one I'd recommend, but maybe it was all just too deep for me.
    • 2/5
      Junior and Hen live in an isolated farm house surrounded by canola fields. Aside from coworkers, they rarely see other people, until one evening a stranger, Terrance, arrives. He tells Junior that Junior has been chosen to take part in a very important project, and must go away for a very long time. But while he is away, Hen will not be lonely, because he will be replaced with an absolute double.The book has been described as an eerie psychological puzzle, which sounds good, but I was extremely disappointed by it. Why would Junior be so accepting and passive about Terrance's proposal? And why would Hen, who Junior adores, be so distant and enigmatic? Of course, there is ultimately a "big reveal" (not particularly hard to guess), but by the time it comes it is anticlimactic and I just didn't care any more. I'm not sure what Reid was attempting--a psychological study of a marriage?; a SciFi thriller?; a dystopian warning?In any event, none of it worked for me. One reviewer said the cover is the best thing about the book. I agree (in fact the cover is the reason I bought the book), but this is the proof of the rule not to judge a book by its cover.2 stars
    • 5/5
      Junior and Henrietta are married and live on a farm. They enjoy their solitude. There are no neighbours, the city is far away, and they don't get visitors. Ever. So imagine their surprise when, not only do they get a visitor one night, but this visitor comes with the news that Junior has been randomly selected to travel very far away. Alone. No Henrietta. Arrangements have already been made and Hen will be left in good hands.

      I was SO excited when I found out Iain Reid was coming out with another book because I loved I'm Thinking of Ending Things SO much!! I was even more excited when I got my hands on an ARC. Just by looking at the cover you can tell it's going to be creepy and that something sinister is lurking in those pages. I loved everything about this book - Junior and Hen are real and they're living in an old house in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't imagine having to go through what they did. I couldn't get through this book fast enough. I couldn't wait to know exactly what was going on! Junior's frustration was palpable. Definitely a clever, thought-provoking, page-turner.

      Thank you to the author, Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for an ARC.