Only Partly Here Audiobook (Free)

Lucius Shepard explores the after-effects of injury with this haunting story.

Bobby is a Columbia grad student studying philosophy that has taken a season off from school to help using the meticulous clean-up at ground zero after 9/11. Each day, he enters a nightmarish otherworld of smoke cigarettes and ash, where pieces of broken lives emerge through the rubble like lost soul fragments. Haunted by what he offers seen, he discovers himself collecting parts through the wreckage. Yet he’s unable to talk about his experience-until he finds himself attracted to an enigmatic older woman at the pub he frequents after work. Every evening she rests there only, fending off men who approach, looking for some kind of solace or resolution. Inexplicably, Bobby feels compelled to share stories with her. Inside a transformed world where no-one is quite entire, they may offer one another a missing piece.