• Telegraph Avenue

  • A Novel
  • By: Michael Chabon
  • Narrated by: Clarke Peters
  • Length: 18 hrs and 39 mins
  • 3.6 out of 5 stars (558 ratings)

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Telegraph Avenue  By  cover art

Telegraph Avenue

By: Michael Chabon
Narrated by: Clarke Peters
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Publisher's summary

As the summer of 2004 draws to a close, Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe are still hanging in there - longtime friends, bandmates, and co-regents of Brokeland Records, a kingdom of used vinyl located in the borderlands of Berkeley and Oakland. Their wives, Gwen Shanks and Aviva Roth-Jaffe, are the Berkeley Birth Partners, a pair of semi-legendary midwives who have welcomed, between them, more than a thousand newly minted citizens into the dented utopia at whose heart - half tavern, half temple - stands Brokeland Records.

When ex-NFL quarterback Gibson Goode, the fifth-richest black man in the United States, announces plans to build his latest Dogpile megastore on a nearby stretch of Telegraph Avenue, Nat and Archy fear it means certain doom for their vulnerable little enterprise. Meanwhile, Aviva and Gwen also find themselves caught up in a battle for their professional existence, one that tests the limits of their friendship. Adding another layer of complication to the couples' already tangled lives is the surprise appearance of Titus Joyner, the teenage son Archy has never acknowledged and the love of 15-year-old Julius Jaffe's life.

©2012 Michael Chabon (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers

What listeners say about Telegraph Avenue

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
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  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
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Performance
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Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
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    143
  • 4 Stars
    130
  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
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  • 1 Stars
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

26,784 sq in (and 4.5 miles) surrounded by REALITY

I lived for several idyllic months during my virgin adulthood in Boulder, Colorado. There was a term often tossed around, at least then, that Boulder was 20 square miles surrounded by reality (I've since heard the same line used for Madison, Austin and Berkeley).

Like Boulder, the real Telegraph Avenue exists in an idealized borderland surrounded by reality that stretches 4.5 miles from downtown Oakland to U.C. Berkeley. On this street you find the restaurants, used clothing shops, street vendors, bookstores, RECORD SHOPS, college students, hipsters, eccentrics, tourists and the homeless. This setting, like Brokeland itself, is in many ways the natural habitat of Chabon. That very setting is both a blessing and a curse in this novel. First, it allows Chabon to do what he does best. He can vamp about people, sing with the language of the street, jump, jive and pirouette with English prose in a way that makes writers' drool with envy. "Telegraph Avenue" is 26,784 sq in (9 in x 6.2 in x 480 pps) surrounded by reality.

The downside is, in "Telegraph Avenue", Chabon gives us (for the most part) almost exactly what we expect. It is a ostinato playground with strong and confident prose riffs, but offers the safety of repetition and the comfort of Nat's call and Archy's response.

But let's just get real. I'm reviewing this novel because I loved it. Because I have been waiting for his book to drop like my young son waits for his favorite balloon magician to go to start blowing and twisting. Last night at 1:00 am, I grabbed the novel, downloaded the audio, and hyper-caffeinated myself for an all night experience that only Chabon can deliver.

Both Chabon's successes and his literary failures grow from the reality that he takes more risks in one sentence than many writers take in one chapter. If I judge him harder than this book deserves, perhaps it is only because his previous novels (Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Yiddish Policeman's Union, etc) have cast such huge, intense literary shadows in my mind. Any future work by Chabon has a helluva fight for recognition or equivalence. Listening to "Telegraph Avenue" I am tempted to believe that even Chabon's farts must sometimes sing when he is walking in Berkeley.

I would be remiss if I didn't also note that Clarke Peters is THE perfect narrator for this novel. His voice is a mixture of $ex, J@ZZ, and stree+ prophet. I do hope this isn't the last book he does. He was one of the best actors in two of the very best shows on TV (the Wire and Treme). Clarke's voice owned this novel and for a night both Chabon and Clarke shared joint ownership of my Brokeland head.

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78 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Music Lover's Delight

Michael Chabon is an author whose reputation certainly precedes him, and I don't know how I've managed to go this long without digging in to his work. Certainly, there is a nagging concern that what you've heard or read is hype, and that the actual experience is going to be a letdown.

This is not the case here. Telegraph Avenue is everything I want in a novel and more. It's a deep and thoughful reflection on the relationships between blacks and whites, the intermeshing of cultures, of gentrification and urban renewal. It's a detailed and insightful memoir of a time and a place, populated with a rich tapestry of characters who are fully drawn and completely believable. There's a compelling story that spins an intricate web around you and makes you care about what happens; that involves you in a complex set of relationships between people and their community and the conflicts between their personal histories, their aspirations, their families, and their limitations. Local politics, social responsibility, Black Panthers, kung fu, environmentalism, aging blaxploitation stars, midwifery, the impossibility of being 14 years old -- it's all there.

And music. Telegraph Avenue pulses with music, both in the many references that become a soundtrack running in your head and in the detailed, lively descriptions of the incredible conflagration of funk, soul, R&B, rock and roll and jazz that bubbled up out of the American cultural melting pot beginning in the Sixties and continuing to this day. If you don't know what a CTI release was, go do some listening. It will add a layer of depth to the experience of this book that is priceless.

Chabon delivers extremely realistic dialog that includes plenty of street slang and Clarke Peters handles the narration of the audiobook with superb attention to the personalities and characterizations. He gives a believable and authentic voice to a wide cast of characters that includes everything from a 14 year old gay white kid to a nonagenarian Chinese woman, and delivers the narrative in a style that is deeply sensitive to cultural and political connotations. His wonderful voice becomes the music of this experience.

Dig it.

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21 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Skip the audiobook; read the real book

I'm a huge fan of audiobooks. I've probably listened to well over 200 titles, including some literary works. Having enjoyed other books by Michael Chabon, I started to listen to Telegraph Avenue with the highest expectations, but simply couldn't continue beyond a couple of hours. I'm notsure what the problem was, but I had to abandon the book early on. After a couple of months, I finally picked up the actual book and loved it. It is a brilliant novel, with themes of parents/sons; spouses, partners, race, etc. As some reviewers have noted, it recalls Joyce's Ulysses, at least superficially. It just doesn't work as an audiobook, despite the best efforts of the narrator. So, this is just one of those occasions when one is better advised to skip the audio and read the text. (Note, an article in the Times Sunday Book review from November 2013 also led with this book as a prime example of a title that didn't work in audio format.)

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Messy Story

I don't know - too many characters, he goes off on tangents. Nothing of interest so far. Nothing to keep my interest cause I can't follow the story, if there is one. Or is it just a bunch of characters? Entertainment Weekly gave it a B+ - fairly good review but I can't figure out a plot if there is one. I re-read the review to get some insight into what is supposed to be happening but I've given up. The only good thing - and it is great is Clarke Peters' narrative. His voice is very warm and sexy. I like to listen to him before bedtime because his voice is deep, soothing, and relaxing. I'll listen to it at night to help me sleep cause I really don't care about the story. When I was listening to it, I couldn't keep focused on it. One minute he's in present time, then he jumps to to the 70's then it's the midwives (they were at least interesting) and now it's back with the main character. I give up.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Funny, charming story with memorable characters

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend this book to all current and future fans of Michael Chabon.

With pitch-perfect narration by the talented Clarke Peters of The Wire and Treme, this book was so entertaining I listened to it twice, immediately. I became attached to the characters and their humorous and relatable foibles and didn't want the book to end. Michael Chabon's books are reliably great, and this one benefits from being told close-to-home by a Berkeley writer.

After a chapter or two, you feel like you feel at home in "Brokeland"--the border between bourgeoise Berkeley and poorer Oakland--with the gentrifiers and the old timers, 70s film stars, vinyl loving nostalgics, lawsuit-happy yuppies, and people trying to walk between these worlds.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Telegraph Avenue?

The uproariously drunken and messy funeral for the old-timer musician / commie / vinyl collector Mr. Jones was probably the zenith of this wild ride.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I laughed each time I listened.

Any additional comments?

I hope Clarke Peters records more books :)

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Another Very-Well-Written Book by Mr. Chabon

What did you love best about Telegraph Avenue?

The use of language in "Telegraph Avenue" is so rich and seductive that I really didn't want the book to end. Listening to the reader was pure joy. The language conveyed not only the bones of the story, but also varied according to each personality. In addition, the language revealed the ages of the protagonists by being apropos to each person.Mr. Chabon must have done a mountain of research or be an aficionado of vinyl himself. He reveals an encyclopedic familiarity both with jazz of the fifties to the seventies, but also of contemporary music. Listening to stories is one of my all-time favorite activities. The excellent reader sustained the voices of the four pairs of protagonists.

What other book might you compare Telegraph Avenue to and why?

There are passages that reminded me of Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu," in the minutia of details about the music; of Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" in its panoply of characters and of Joyce's "Ulysses" in the sweep of time.

Which scene was your favorite?

This question--"what scene was your favorite" is like asking whether you prefer dark chocolate with or without nuts--because there were so many indelible moments. Here are two: the executor's daughter cleaning out Cochise Jones' apartment and releases his parrot, or the undertaker's nephews chatter while "tailing" Titus and Julie.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

A tag line for a film might be "The Karma of Vinyl."

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

First book I could not finish

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

I love listening to Audible books but this novel was so tedious that I had to stop listening. I didn't find any of the characters interesting enough to inspire me to like them, dislike them, or compel me to listen more to learn about them. I'm honestly not sure who this one would appeal to.

Has Telegraph Avenue turned you off from other books in this genre?

The book didn't turn me off to other books in this genre but, as a displaced Californian who thought it would be fun to listen to a story about the Bay Area -- a place where I grew up and could relate to, it sadly failed me. And I found that terribly disappointing.

What didn’t you like about Clarke Peters’s performance?

I thought the performance didnt enhance the book, but maybe that wasnt possible. He gave it a good try, but the plot was lacking.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Telegraph Avenue?

I didnt find anything in the plot that made me want to continue. If I were playing editor, I would have asked for better character development to inspire some type of feeling from the listener. And a plot that evolved more quickly to draw in the listener. I didn't get either.

Any additional comments?

I regret writing a negative review, but I've listened to endless titles on Audible, some better or worse than others. This is the only one that I literally had to shut off because I couldn't be drawn in, even after giving it more time than I normally would have. I gave it a big try without successl.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars
  • DR
  • 02-01-13

Too Many Words; There You Have It!

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

I don't think anything could have redeemed this story for me.

Would you ever listen to anything by Michael Chabon again?

Probably not

What didn’t you like about Clarke Peters’s performance?

It was too difficult for me to distinguish different characters.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Frustration

Any additional comments?

Chabon seems so in love with his own words. I completely lost the train of thought by his wordy interludes. I didn't care about any of the characters, and I just wanted the book to end.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

How Does He Do It?

Michael Chabon has written, but I should say crafted, a novel that includes the areas of family, friendships, r & b music of the 70's, race relations, and the idea of neighborhood. The stories that he weaves through the novel are fascinating and the interactions of the characters will make this book a Pulitzer contender. I have read several novels by Chabon and this is truly special.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Just not as thrilling as his previous works.

I've read (not listened to) all of Chabon's novels and this one, while enjoyable, just seems like him in a minor key. Story takes a while to get started and once it does never seems to take off. (This is odd since there is a long set piece taking place in a dirigible with a night club attached.)
Also, the story, while amusing, just didn't seem to have the depth of his best ones. I got through it but just barely.

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3 people found this helpful