American Snake Pit
Hope, Grit, and Resilience in the Wake of Willowbrook
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Narrated by:
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Tom Askin
About this listen
"We have a situation that borders on a snake pit." - Robert F. Kennedy
In 1987, following a public outcry about its questionable medical practices, Staten Island's Willowbrook State School for people with intellectual disabilities closed its doors for good.
Flat broke and almost finished with graduate school, Dan Tomasulo - now a core faculty member at Columbia University's Spirituality Mind Body Institute - was hired to relocate Willowbrook's most severely disabled inhabitants into a groundbreaking community-based group home.
American Snake Pit is the story of the disregarded souls who ended up in Tomasulo's care; of the eccentric, resilient staff who helped make such a momentous success possible; and, most of all, of one man's persistent struggle to give voices to those who could not advocate for themselves.
©2018 Daniel Tomasulo (P)2018 Daniel TomasuloListeners also enjoyed...
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Psychosis or Syphilis?
- By Vira on 04-02-13
By: Juliann Garey
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The Wrong Sister
- By: T. E. Woods
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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From behind the wheel of her car, Tess Kincaid glimpses a woman walking down a Madison, Wisconsin, street. They've never met, but Tess sees the same features every time she looks in the mirror. Tess introduces herself and discovers that she and her doppelganger, Mimi, have more than appearance in common. They even share the same birthday. Mimi - confident and outgoing where Tess is understated and shy - is convinced they're twins, separated shortly after birth. When a body is discovered in a local marsh, Tess is entangled in a search for the truth....
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Nothing like anything T E Woods has written B4!!!
- By shelley on 03-01-18
By: T. E. Woods
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Lifted by the Great Nothing
- By: Karim Dimechkie
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Max doesn't remember his mother, who was murdered by burglars before they emigrated from Beirut to New Jersey. He lives with his father, Rasheed, who is enamored of his concept of American culture - baseball and barbeques - and tries to shed his Lebanese heritage completely.
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Excellent
- By Cheyenne on 06-13-15
By: Karim Dimechkie
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Loving Day
- By: Mat Johnson
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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On his first night in his new home, Warren spies two figures in the grass outside; when he screws up the nerve to confront them, they disappear. The next day he encounters ghosts of a different kind: In the face of the teenage girl he meets at a comics convention, he sees the mingled features of his white father and his black mother, both now dead. The girl is his daughter, and she thinks she's white.
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Teen lit with heavy erotic imagery
- By Itinerant T on 08-26-15
By: Mat Johnson
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It's Kind of a Funny Story
- By: Ned Vizzini
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Ambitious New York City teenager Craig Gilner is determined to succeed at life-which means getting into the right high school to get into the right college to get the right job. But once Craig aces his way into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School, the pressure becomes unbearable. He stops eating and sleeping until, one night, he nearly kills himself.
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Really bad story
- By Nora on 08-20-18
By: Ned Vizzini
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No Safe Secret
- By: Fern Michaels
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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From her silver Mercedes to her designer kitchen, Molly's life is gleaming and beautiful - at least on the surface. Married to Tanner, a top cosmetic dentist, she has a wonderful daughter finishing high school and twin stepsons from Tanner's first marriage. No one in her exclusive neighborhood in Goldenhills, Massachusetts, knows what living with the demanding Tanner is really like. They know even less about the life she left behind in Florida almost two decades ago.
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All the stars I can give...
- By Courtney on 05-21-16
By: Fern Michaels
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The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club
- True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life
- By: Laurie Notaro
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Introducing Laurie Notaro, the leader of the Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club. Every day she fearlessly rises from bed to defeat the evil machinations of dolts, dimwits, and creepy boyfriends - and that's before she even puts on a bra. For the past 10 years, Notaro has been entertaining Phoenix newspaper readers with her wildly amusing autobiographical exploits and unique life experiences.
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Sweet and funny
- By Julia Valentin on 12-19-20
By: Laurie Notaro
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True Biz
- A Novel
- By: Sara Novic
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan, Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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True biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history finals, and have politicians, doctors, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges listeners into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they’ll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who’s never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school’s golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the hearing headmistress.
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A good story with added features both intriguing and informational
- By A Signing Mom on 05-15-22
By: Sara Novic
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The Turner House
- By: Angela Flournoy
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over 50 years. Their house has seen 13 children grown and gone - and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit's East Side, and the loss of a father. The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to the suburbs. But now, as ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a 10th of its mortgage.
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The narrator's performance made the difference.
- By KT on 06-11-15
By: Angela Flournoy
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The Scoop
- Godmothers, Book 1
- By: Fern Michaels
- Narrated by: Natalie Ross
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Teresa "Toots" Amelia Loudenberry has crammed a great deal of living - not to mention eight much-loved husbands - into her varied and rewarding life. Newly single, Toots is ready to taste life again, and fate has just handed her the perfect opportunity.
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GREAT FUN
- By Linda Louise on 03-12-12
By: Fern Michaels
What listeners say about American Snake Pit
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Peter Berridge
- 07-16-18
Twice in three days!
During long drives this week, I tuned into Dan's book, American Snake Pit. I'm a regular Audible subscriber and usually listen to part of a book, sometimes the whole book, and rarely the same book twice. This is the first time I've listened to the same book twice in three days. American Snake Pit is riveting, educating, hilarious and poignant. The narrator does an excellent job and Dan's writing creates a vivid mental picture that draws you in. It was during the return trip home when I played the book for my sister, a pediatric nurse. I found myself looking forward to her discovery of each chapter - she loved it. So much so that she just purchased her first Audible book - American Snake Pit.
We laughed and were moved by this incredible story of challenge and transformation. I can't wait to see the movie!
Pete
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