Telegraph Avenue - Michael Chabon Audiobook

Written by Michael Chabon
Read by Clark Peters
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Harper Collins/HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Release date: May 4, 2015
Duration: 18:37:55

Oakland, California, circa 2004, Telegraph Avenue follows the fortunes of two families- one white, one black- as their lives intertwine in profound and exhilarating ways.

Set during the Bush/Kerry election, in Chabon’s home of Berkeley, Calif., it follows the flagging fortunes of Brokeland Records, a vintage record store on the titular block run by Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe, currently threatened with closure by Pittsburgh Steeler’s quarterback-turned-entrepreneur Gibson “G Bad” Goode’s plans to “restore, at a stroke, the commercial heart of a black neighborhood” with one of his Dogpile “Thang” emporiums.

The community mobilizes and confronts this challenge to the relative racial harmony enjoyed by the white Jaffe; his gay Tarantino-enthusiast son, Julie; and the African-American Archy, whose partner, Gwen Shanks, is not only pregnant but finds the midwife business she runs with Aviva, Jaffe’s wife, in legal trouble following a botched delivery. Making matters worse is Stallings’s father, Luther, a faded blaxploitation movie star with a Black Panther past, and the appearance of Titus, the son Archy didn’t know he had.

A review - All the elements of a socially progressive contemporary novel are in place, but Chabon’s preference for retro—the reader is seldom a page away from a reference to Marvel comics, kung fu movies, or a coveted piece of ’70s vinyl—quickly wears out its welcome. Worse, Chabon’s approach to race is surprisingly short on nuance and marred by a goofy cameo from a certain charismatic senator from Illinois

Clarke Peters, evokes the spirit and sensibility of the place as well its many diverse characters. Chabon is one of the few white writers who have a convincing ear for ethnic dialogue. He and Peters perform a magic that is something far more than mimicry. D.A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine