• Apartment

  • By: Teddy Wayne
  • Narrated by: Mark Chavez
  • Length: 4 hrs and 25 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (20 ratings)

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Apartment  By  cover art

Apartment

By: Teddy Wayne
Narrated by: Mark Chavez
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Publisher's summary

Bloomsbury presents Apartment by Teddy Wayne, read by Mark Chavez.

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2020 by Vogue, The Boston Globe, and The Millions

Longlisted for the 2020 Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize

From the award-winning author of Loner and The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, a powerful novel about loneliness and friendship, gender and sexuality, and the political schisms that dominate our times.

In 1996, the unnamed narrator of Teddy Wayne’s Apartment is attending the MFA writing program at Columbia on his father’s dime and living in an illegal sublet of a rent-stabilized apartment. Feeling guilty about his good fortune, he offers his spare bedroom rent-free to Billy, a talented, charismatic classmate from the Midwest eking out a hand-to-mouth existence in Manhattan.

The narrator’s rapport with Billy develops into the friendship he’s never had due to a lifetime of holding people at arm’s length, hovering at the periphery, feeling 'fundamentally defective'. But their living arrangement, not to mention their radically different upbringings, breeds tensions neither man could predict. Interrogating the origins of our contemporary political divide and its ties to masculinity and class, Apartment is a gutting portrait of one of New York’s many lost, disconnected souls by a writer with an uncommon aptitude for embodying them.

©2020 Teddy Wayne (P)2020 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

"Take[s] on masculinity and class struggles with precision and verve." (The Boston Globe, "Most Anticipated Books of 2020")

“Draftsmanlike precision...it leaves one feeling vaguely ill, in the best way possible. A near-anthropological study of male insecurity.” (Kirkus Reviews)

"One of New York City’s most ephemeral glories - the illegally subleased, rent-stabilised apartment - provides the base for this novel, which delves into how shared space can make for a powerful, if imperfect, bond between men. (Vogue, The 22 Best Books to Read This Winter)

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Terrible narration ruins a good book

The narration by Mark Chavez was the worst ever. I seldom complain about the narration but always seem to be able to wade through. This one offended from beginning to end and was much too fast, then it was a monotone - just read the words - hard to know who was speaking and then it was replete with mispronunciations. In order to make the dialogue more reasonable I had to play the audio on a slower speed than usual and this only tended to make the narrator's voice even more of a deep bass muddle. One wonders if anyone listens to these recordings before they're distributed. Both Mr. Wayne's two other books benefited from excellent narrations.

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing

The story is mediocre at best.
The narration is monotone with multiple mispronounced words. Disappointing.

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