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  • Reckless Eyeballing

  • By: Ishmael Reed
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It's the 1980s and the politics of the New York theater scene have taken yet another turn.

Masochism is out and feminism is in, Jews are out and Germans are in, race is out and gender is in, and everyone's fighting (and rewriting) for a piece of the pie. In this hilarious, devastating, but also deeply sympathetic novel, Ishmael Reed turns characters on their backs, sides, tops and bottoms to expose the multiple hypocrisies at the heart of American culture.

The Terrible Twos audiobook cover art

  • The Terrible Twos

  • By: Ishmael Reed
  • Narrated by: John Bentley
  • Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 3
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars 3
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    3.5 out of 5 stars 3

The Terrible Twos is a wickedly funny, sharp-edged fictional assault on all those sulky, spoiled naysayers needing instant gratification - Americans. Ishmael Reed's sixth novel depicts a zany, bizarre, and all-too-believable future where mankind's fate depends upon a jolly old gent named St. Nicholas and a Risto-rasta dwarf named Black Peter, who together wreak mischievous havoc on Wall Street and in the Oval Office. This offbeat, on-target social critique makes marvelous fun of everything that is American, from commercialism to Congress, Santa Claus to religious cults.

  • 3 out of 5 stars

  • Another Crazy Reed Story

  • By Sharey on 05-23-17
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  • History as a Novel, the Novel as History
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    4.5 out of 5 stars 17
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The Armies of the Night chronicles the famed October 1967 March on the Pentagon, in which all of the old and new Left - hippies, yuppies, Weathermen, Quakers, Christians, feminists, and intellectuals - came together to protest the Vietnam War. Alongside his contemporaries, Mailer went, witnessed, participated, suffered, and then wrote one of the most stark and intelligent appraisals of the 1960s.

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  • The Plot Against America

  • By: Philip Roth
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In an astonishing feat of empathy and narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history. In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected president. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial "understanding" with Adolf Hitler while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.

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  • Democracy

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Inez Victor knows that the major casualty of the political life is memory. But the people around Inez have made careers out of losing track. Her senator husband wants to forget the failure of his last bid for the presidency. Her husband's handler would like the press to forget that Inez's father is a murderer. And, in 1975, the year in which much of this bitterly funny novel is set, America is doing its best to lose track of its one-time client, the lethally hemorrhaging republic of South Vietnam.

  • 3 out of 5 stars

  • Author interruptions are odd.

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Revolutionary Road audiobook cover art

  • Revolutionary Road

  • By: Richard Yates
  • Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
  • Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
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    4.5 out of 5 stars 363
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From the moment of its publication in 1961, Revolutionary Road was hailed as a masterpiece of realistic fiction and as the most evocative portrayal of the opulent desolation of the American suburbs. It's the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright, beautiful, and talented couple who have lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner.

  • 3 out of 5 stars

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Publisher's Summary

Ishmael Reed's electrifying first novel zooms readers off to the crazy, ominous kingdom of HARRY SAM - a miserable and dangerous place ruled for thirty years by Harry Sam, a former used car salesman who wields his power from his bathroom throne. In a land of a thousand contradictions peopled by cops and beatniks, black nationalists and white liberals, the crusading Bukka Doopeyduk leads a rebellion against the corrupt Sam in a wildly uproarious and scathing satire, earning the author the right to be dubbed "the brightest contributor to American satire since Mark Twain" (The Nation).
©1967 Ishmael Reed (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Critic Reviews

"For all the talk of the black aesthetic, few black novelists have broken sharply with the traditional devices of the realistic novel. One writer who departs from such conventions, however, is Ishmael Reed.... The Free-Lance Pallbearers uses an explosive combination of straightforward English prose, exaggerated black dialect, hip jargon, advertising slogans and long, howling uppercase screams." (Newsweek)

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

Just Plain Fun

Similar to Paul Beatty's style (I just finished The Sellout), but tighter in story, rougher around the edges, funnier, and with a lighter twist which all lend to a more enjoyable listen. But like Beatty, Reed got sloppy and a bit confusing in his last couple chapters, but his was nevertheless fun to listen to. The narration was perfectly matched to the book. Unlike Beatty, I'll proceed to another by this author.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful