Take This Man

A Memoir

By: Brando Skyhorse

Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot

From PEN/Hemingway award winner Brando Skyhorse comes this stunning, heartfelt memoir in the vein of The Glass Castle or TheTender Bar, the true story of a boy's turbulent childhood growing up with five stepfathers and the mother who was determined to give her son everything but the truth.

When he was three years old, Brando Kelly Ulloa was abandoned by his Mexican father. His mother, Maria, dreaming of a more exciting life, saw no reason for her son to live his life as a Mexican just because he started out as one. The life of "Brando Skyhorse", the American Indian son of an incarcerated political activist, was about to begin.

Through a series of letters to Paul Skyhorse Johnson, a stranger in prison for armed robbery, Maria reinvents herself and her young son as American Indians in the colorful Mexican American neighborhood of Echo Park,California. There Brando and his mother live with his acerbic grandmother and a rotating cast of surrogate fathers. It will be over 30 years before Brando begins to untangle the truth of his own past, when a surprise discovery onlineleads him to his biological father at last.

From an acclaimed, prize-winning novelist celebrated for his"indelible storytelling" (O, The Oprah Magazine), this extraordinary literary memoir captures a son's single-minded search for a father wherever he can find one and is destined to become a classic.

©2014 Brando Skyhorse (P)2014 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

What a great memoir

Rarer do I take the time to comment on an audiobook but this was such an interesting, heartfelt, funny and well written book that I had to take the time… you will enjoy and I even cried at the end.

Interesting case study of dysfunction and coping

Actually turned out to be quite a good book. Many of us can relate to different degrees of what the story of this boy turned man went thru and the conflicting feelings and edge of sanity dealing with family members like his…along with the needing to be needed and insufficient/lacking role models we are given. It’s nice to see people turn something good or positive after being in such a situation for so long.

An amazing story

I absolutely loved this book! What an amazing story and the narration was great! I highly recommend.

Brutally honest

A look into the life of a man who experienced hardship and a difficult journey growing up. The story is honest and Brando does an excellent job of writing and having the reader understand the chaos yet recognize that the child experiencing the chaos sees only a family living day to day life. The narration is excellent.

Sad yet gripping

This book was well written (and well read) as well as engaging.
I love stories of perseverance and this man surely persevered. I also love stories about reconciliation. The last sentence of this story says it all.