A Different Drummer
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Narrated by:
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Jay Smooth
About this listen
The stunning, thought-provoking first novel by a "lost giant of American literature" (The New Yorker)
June 1957. One hot afternoon in the backwaters of the Deep South, a young black farmer named Tucker Caliban salts his fields, shoots his horse, burns his house, and heads north with his wife and child. His departure sets off an exodus of the state’s entire black population, throwing the established order into brilliant disarray. Told from the points of view of the white residents who remained, A Different Drummer stands, decades after its first publication in 1962, as an extraordinary and prescient triumph of satire and spirit.
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"[A] lost giant of American literature.... Brilliant." (The New Yorker)
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"Kelley blended fantasy and fact to construct an alternative world whose sweep and complexity drew comparisons to James Joyce and William Faulkner." (The New York Times)
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- Narrated by: Graham Rowat, Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 25 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In the home where Arabella Godwin was raised it is forbidden to speak her name, and her picture is turned to the wall. But in the turbulent America of the 1850s, everyone knows her as "Belle Cora", madam of San Francisco's finest bordello. Judges and senators do her bidding; a vicious newspaper editor plots her downfall; a preacher looks at her from across his pulpit and tries to forget that once she was his wife. Merchant's daughter, farm girl, prostitute, mother - the only thing that never changes is her tireless pursuit of the one man who can see her for who she really is.
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excellent
- By Patricia on 05-15-20
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The Town
- A Novel of the Snopes Family
- By: William Faulkner
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of Flem Snopes' ruthless struggle to take over the town of Jefferson, Mississippi, this is the second volume of Faulkner's trilogy about the Snopes family, his symbol for the grasping, destructive element in the post-bellum South.
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Accessible Faulkner
- By Doug on 03-28-11
By: William Faulkner
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Memories of Another Day
- By: Harold Robbins
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 15 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Born to a life of violence and tragedy, Dan becomes one of the most powerful and dangerous labor organizers in the country - at the expense of his personal relationships. He's a man who embraced violence, fierce ambition, lust and a deep hunger for justice even as he accumulated personal wealth, fame, and power.
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Good story too much unnecessary sex
- By J. Veinot on 08-14-17
By: Harold Robbins
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Invisible Man
- A Novel
- By: Ralph Ellison
- Narrated by: Joe Morton
- Length: 18 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Ralph Elllison's Invisible Man is a monumental novel, one that can well be called an epic of modern American Negro life. It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal, some of them pitiful and touching—yet always with elements of comedy and irony and burlesque that appear in unexpected places. It is a book that has a great deal to say and which is destined to have a great deal said about it.
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How Did This Escape Me?
- By E. Pearson on 11-23-11
By: Ralph Ellison
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Collected Stories of William Faulkner
- By: William Faulkner
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer, Susan Denaker, Scott Brick, and others
- Length: 31 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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This magisterial collection of short works by Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner reminds listeners of his ability to compress his epic vision into narratives as hard and wounding as bullets. Among the 42 selections in this audiobook are such classics as "A Bear Hunt", "A Rose for Emily", "Two Soldiers", and "The Brooch".
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Audiobook Table of Contents (by Chapter)
- By John McKinney on 09-27-20
By: William Faulkner
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Rain of Gold
- By: Victor Villaseñor
- Narrated by: Johnny Rey Diaz
- Length: 30 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Rain of Gold is a true-life saga of love, family and destiny that pulses with bold vitality, sweeping from the war-ravaged Mexican mountains of Pancho Villa's revolution to the days of Prohibition in California.
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Thank you Victor again!
- By cynthia g on 09-24-20
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Gloria
- By: Kerry Young
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Jamaica, 1938. Gloria Campbell is sixteen years old when a single violent act alters the course of her life forever. Taking along her younger sister, she flees their hometown to forge a new life in Kingston. But in a capital city awash with change, a black woman is still treated as a second-class citizen. From a room in a boarding house and a job at a supply store, Gloria finds her way to a house of ill repute on the edge of the city, intrigued by the glamorous, financially independent women within.
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Awesome story! And Robin Miles is a star!!
- By atlfolk on 06-23-18
By: Kerry Young
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Tomorrow Will Be Better
- By: Betty Smith
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Tomorrow Will Be Better tells the story of Margy Shannon, a shy but joyfully optimistic young woman just out of school who lives with her parents and witnesses how a lifetime of hard work, poverty, and pain has worn them down. Her mother's resentment toward being a housewife and her father's inability to express his emotions result in a tense home life where Margy has no voice. Unable to speak up against her overbearing mother, Margy takes refuge in her dreams of a better life.
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Heartfelt and Heart-wrenchingly Real!
- By M. Ryder on 02-16-22
By: Betty Smith
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Peyton Place
- By: Grace Metalious
- Narrated by: Tim O'Connor
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
In 1956, when this novel was first published, communities all over New England snapped up copies to see if they were the town portrayed in the book. Peyton Place is the story of a repressive New England town known for its high standards of public morality, and the steamy sexual activities that take place behind its bedroom doors.
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Best book I've read to date!
- By Crusader on 11-07-11
By: Grace Metalious
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The Last Ballad
- A Novel
- By: Wiley Cash
- Narrated by: Karen White, Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Twelve times a week, 28-year-old Ella May Wiggins makes the two-mile trek to and from her job on the night shift at American Mill No. Two in Bessemer City, North Carolina. The insular community considers the mill's owners - the newly arrived Goldberg brothers - white but not American and expects them to pay Ella May and other workers less because they toil alongside African Americans like Violet, Ella May's best friend. While the dirty, hazardous job at the mill earns Ella May a paltry nine dollars for 72 hours of work each week, it's the only opportunity she has.
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Dryer than a popcorn fart
- By Scott Wilson on 02-11-18
By: Wiley Cash
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Multiple Stories Obfuscate Narrative
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In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
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What listeners say about A Different Drummer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sharon Henry
- 07-05-24
A significant and stirring story
“A Different Drummer” is both insightful, compelling, eerie, and heartbreaking. The author’s ability to show the reader the different perspectives of what set the stage for the key turning points in the story are clear, deliberate and striking. The last 10 pages of the story (I read along with the audio version) made an indelible impression.
This is a short read and I do not want to spoil the plot. All I will add is that if you are a fan of Douglas Turner Ware’s play “A Day Of Absence”, you will appreciate the source of the playwright’s inspiration and realize the play is a comedic reworking of this dramatic novel. The novel shouts its main themes from a key character that we in 2024 would do well to understand and apply.
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- liza mae jane
- 06-01-22
Painful
Shameful. If you are white. Dignity. Complexity. Or is it as simple as it is ugly.
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1 person found this helpful
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- soup cook
- 12-30-20
what a discovery!
what a fascinating read! excellent narration as well. as if from a time capsule, and continually surprising.
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1 person found this helpful
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- kamf
- 08-23-23
Narrator not up to the story
Interesting story but the narrator was very distracting. Story was captivating but almost gave up on listening because of the narrator.
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- E.
- 10-25-19
A wonderful and moving story
William Kelley was a friend and I had read this book a few years ago, it was a wonderful and moving story. The narrative by Jay Smooth was enthralling and it came alive!
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2 people found this helpful
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- J. Parks
- 02-28-24
Excellent book
The unusual perspective was key for me. Not what I expected at all until the end. Will read more of Mr Kelley’s work.
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