There Are Flowers in Ohio cover art

There Are Flowers in Ohio

A Short Story

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

There Are Flowers in Ohio

By: Rumaan Alam
Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Allison Hiroto, Suzanne Toren
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £7.63

Buy Now for £7.63

About this listen

From the New York Times best-selling author of Leave the World Behind comes an evocative short story about love, self-perception, and a family in transition.

Alice Comstock has always been a dutiful wife and an attentive mother, a perfectionist presiding over a flawless home. She’s reliably been her family’s center, the caretaker and problem-solver, until an illness requires her children to assume responsibility for their mother. For Adam, Alice’s youngest, a return home to California sparks a memory of his younger self. Alternating between the present and flashbacks to Adam’s college years, "There Are Flowers in Ohio" explores how the paths not taken shape all of our lives.

©2022 Rumaan Alam (P)2022 Audible Originals, LLC. Literature & Fiction Short Stories
All stars
Most relevant
A rather well executed short story that covers a whole cast of characters and their big and small life choices, as well as unexpected circumstances that affect their lives. Gives the reader that bittersweet feeling of wondering how different things could have been, if only.
The love story is not a "happily ever after" one, and reflects many realities of the pre-internet period in the US, in which most of the story is set in.
It was interesting how characters disliked the dish bowl, because it reminded them of their life choices, meaning they are not happy about them, and would rather forget it.
The story feels perfectly finished in what it was trying to do. Rather than a captivating story, it's a story that makes you contemplate things.
I was surprised that such a short story had multiple narrators. They did well.

Puts you in a contemplative mood

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.