Six narrators read this novel, whose principal characters meet at a cross-dressing Paris club at the end of the Jazz Age. Although each switch in narrator immediately signals a change in point of view, listeners still may have some difficulty keeping track of the shifting time frames, especially because this story of love, betrayal, and survival in the underbelly of the city derives from several fictitious sources, such as letters, a biography, and memoirs . More off-putting, however, is the uneven performances; for example, some of the French accents seem stereotypical; whereas, the Hungarian photographer, who is at the hub of the audiobook, has no accent at all. This novel, which is loosely based on real events from the 1930s and ‘40s, is better enjoyed in print.
Pub Date: 2014
Duration: 18 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9780062331847
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
American colleges are favorable locales for ghastly event and hair-tearing circumstance. There is, for instance, a good deal of pleasure to be had out of professor and past-prodigy Grady Tripp's awful life, as portrayed by Michael Chabon in WONDER BOYS. There is a certain amount of slapstick here, but it's balanced by Chabon's superb portrait of a gale-force mid-life crisis, a soul-destroying albatross of an unfinished novel and the mind-numbing inconsequence of writers' conferences. David Colacci sounds a little starved for oxygen in his reading, but that's not exactly out of keeping with Grady Tripp's personal gestalt.
Pub Date:
Duration: N/A
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
As a group of men bring their own emotional baggage to their football-obsessed reunion, R.C. Bray delivers his usual solid narration. He shifts his tones slightly but enough to put the listener in the motel with the men, revealing their foibles as the story progresses. The narrator's role in this book is a descriptive one, and Bray is a good guide. His narration becomes extra important because this is a rare instance when there almost isn't a protagonist. The author's well-written story--which alternates between serious and laugh-out-loud funny--uses quarterback Joe Theismann's 1985 injury, a broken leg, as a McGuffin.
Pub Date:
Duration: 5 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781681680057
Publisher: HighBridge Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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