Telegraph Avenue

A Novel

By: Michael Chabon

Narrated by: Clarke Peters

Length: 18 hrs and 39 mins

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

Telegraph Avenue

What made the experience of listening to Telegraph Avenue the most enjoyable?

Splendid use of different voices for each character.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

More clear pronunciation of words.

What does Clarke Peters bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

A bit more vitality for the story.

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

No extreme reactions.

Any additional comments?

Novel has too many long intervals that provide little insight to ideas and make it too long.

Amazing assortment of characters

Where does Telegraph Avenue rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Up there with the very best of them

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

There were several very memorable moments when action and characters converge and the story seems to mesh. There was humor, sadness, pathos, suspense...everything that makes a good book

What about Clarke Peters’s performance did you like?

I think this narrator really made the book happen for me. He brought the characters to life and made them visible to the listener

If you could rename Telegraph Avenue, what would you call it?

Brokeland.

Any additional comments?

I know the author is a master of words, so listening to his books works better for me than reading them.

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.

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.

Wonderful novel, great audio experience

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

Yiddish Policeman's Union

Any additional comments?

This is a rich slice of life from a time in the not-too-distant past. All the characters are drawn with humor and compassion, and each is flawed, sometimes tragically, but always with redemption in mind. However, Chabon's novels function better with an on-board ticking bomb, so that the reader feels like they've earned closure at the end of the novel. Chabon closed Yiddish Policeman's Union with the end of a way of life, and it felt like he tried to end TA the same way. But he just couldn't let go of these wonderful guys. As life, this makes a perfect narrative. As a novel I wanted a slightly firmer hand in the last chapters. This audio performance is among my all-time favorites, and TA itself is the best novel of the year. Among the best from this great author.

Mike Miller's review

Would you consider the audio edition of Telegraph Avenue to be better than the print version?

Narrator had soul, book has ink only.

What did you like best about this story?

multi-cultural plot lines woven between 3 generations.

Which scene was your favorite?

When the zeppelin was un-leashed.

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

nostalgic for the 1970's

Any additional comments?

Author did a nice job of describing attitudes during the 1970's. I'll bet most of the nostalgic facts were accurate. The vintage cars seemed to be true to form.

I rounded up

Liked Chabon’s story—mostly unpredictable. Liked Peters’s performance—sonorous voice. He misspoke a few SF Bay Area pronunciations, otherwise excellent. Probably would’ve given Overall Rating 4.5, but since 1/2 stars aren’t an option I rounded up 😜

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.

Hard book to follow, disjointed

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

not sure

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

No

How could the performance have been better?

I don't have any real complaint about the performance

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

It was just a jumble.

Any additional comments?

I really wanted to enjoy this book. I tried several times restarting it because I always felt like I was missing something. In the end, I didn't even finish the book.

Impossibly dull!

Sorry to say I had to abandon this book after 4 chapters. Excruciatingly dull male characters that I cared not a whit for, although actually wished something would happen to change my mind. But no. Chabon has a decent writing style and some memorable turns of phrase. Just not my taste at all, and life is too short to keep reading/listening to something so deeply dull. Perhaps I was hoping for a more Armistead Maupin tale of San Francisco? The narrator's kind of upbeat jazzy voice was ok. Maybe I'll hear him read something more literary and interesting, so I can judge him more fairly.