
Big Machine
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Sean Crisden
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By:
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Victor LaValle
About this listen
Ricky Rice is a middling hustler with a lingering junk habit, a bum knee, and a haunted mind. A survivor of a suicide cult, he scrapes by as a porter at a bus depot in Utica, New York, until one day a mysterious letter arrives, summoning him to enlist in a band of paranormal investigators comprised of former addicts and petty criminals, all of whom had at some point in their wasted lives heard what may have been the voice of God.
Infused with the wonder of a disquieting dream and laced with Victor LaValle's fiendish comic sensibility, Big Machine is a mind-rattling mystery about doubt, faith, and the monsters we carry within us.
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- Unabridged
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The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things—the strange and the unexplainable—began to happen in their house. Maybe it was some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper-middle class. Whatever it was, the Maxwells, steered by their formidable mother, stayed put, unwilling to abandon their home, terrors and trauma be damned.
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They eat every time
- By Anonymous User on 02-23-25
By: Rivers Solomon
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Black Mouth
- By: Ronald Malfi
- Narrated by: Joe Hempel
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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For nearly two decades, Jamie Warren has been running from darkness. He's haunted by a traumatic childhood and the guilt at having disappeared from his disabled brother's life. But then a series of unusual events reunites him with his estranged brother and their childhood friends, and none of them can deny the sense of fate that has seemingly drawn them back together. Nor can they deny the memories of that summer, so long ago—the strange magic taught to them by an even stranger man, and the terrible act that has followed them all into adulthood.
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Great Listen
- By SONYA on 09-19-22
By: Ronald Malfi
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The Queen
- By: Nick Cutter
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake, Zac Aleman, Corey Brill, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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On a sunny morning in June, Margaret Carpenter wakes up to find a new iPhone on her doorstep. She switches it on to find a text from her best friend, Charity Atwater. The problem is, Charity’s been missing for over a month. Most people in town—even the police—think she’s dead. Margaret and Charity have been lifelong friends. They share everything, know the most intimate details about one another…except for the destructive secret hidden from them both. A secret that will trigger a chain of events ending in tragedy, bloodshed, and death. And now Charity wants Margaret to know her story.
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Yikes. Boring and forgettable.
- By Paintedsheep on 11-15-24
By: Nick Cutter
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I Was a Teenage Slasher
- By: Stephen Graham Jones
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Stephen Graham Jones
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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1989, Lamesa, Texas. A small west Texas town driven by oil and cotton—and a place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. So it goes for Tolly Driver, a good kid with more potential than application, seventeen, and about to be cursed to kill for revenge. Here Stephen Graham Jones explores the Texas he grew up in, and shared sense of unfairness of being on the outside through the slasher horror Jones loves, but from the perspective of the killer, Tolly, writing his own autobiography. Find yourself rooting for a killer in this summer teen movie of a novel gone full blood-curdling tragic.
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So much fun
- By Amber on 08-13-24
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Mary
- An Awakening of Terror
- By: Nat Cassidy
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 15 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Mary is a quiet middle-aged woman doing her best to blend into the background. Unremarkable. Invisible. Unknown even to herself. But lately, things have been changing inside Mary. Along with the hot flashes and body aches, she can’t look in a mirror without passing out, and the voices in her head have been urging her to do unspeakable things. Fired from her job in New York, she moves back to her hometown hoping to reconnect with her past and inner self. What she finds instead are visions of terrifying mutilated specters that come with increasing regularity.
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Stunning!
- By Damien TerraFina on 09-12-22
By: Nat Cassidy
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- Blanco 716
- 03-04-20
Peters out at the end
The story had me fully engaged until the end. I was ultimately left with frustration, due to loose plot threads.
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- Cii'Em
- 03-05-24
Another Good One From Mr. Lavalle
TBH, took me more than a few tries to get into this one. I love Lavalle's work but I do feel like he likes a good slow burn beginning. However, once I felt things started to pick up, I found myself engaged. Weirdly, it wasn't the central/main story that I was invested in. It was the flashbacks/"How we got here" b stories that held my interest more than anything. There was a point where I was only listening to the central story so I could get back to the flashbacks.
Overall though, I liked this book. The narrator's reading & performance were superb. I liked it, not loved it like I did "The Changeling" but it was good & I loved the very deep & thought provoking sentiments surrounding the topics of trauma, religion/faith, redemption, recovery, & second chances.
I just hate that it ends on something of a cliffhanger and I'm pretty certain that from when the book was published, there doesn't seem to be a sequel in the works. So I'll just have to sit with that I guess.
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- Bill
- 02-14-18
Victor LaValle is good. Real good.
Have you ever known failure so deep, it feels biological?”
I like Victor LaValle. The dude is crazy good. I didn’t read anything about this one prior to picking and digging right in. I don’t really need to with LaValle. I know it is going to be weird, interesting, entertaining and smart. I also know that most of the time I won’t know wtf is going on or where it’s going. The only thing I’ll know for sure is that it won’t be what I think it is…and that’s a good thing.
Cockeyed gospels, soul eating cats, chaffing nipples, heavenly voices, churches made from Clay and an epic road trip with the Grey Lady.
There were elements and concepts here that were truly superb and others that felt a little forced and flat. I still liked it though. Not my favorite of Victor’s, but even that is better than a lot of guys (gals) can do.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Jared Landberg
- 10-25-23
Great work by an amazing author
I do love this piece. Not quite as much as some of his later works, but this one is solid. The character development is thorough and some of the twists are alluding plot lines are downright surprising. Those washer women…
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- D
- 12-11-23
No more
This is the last Victor Lavalle book I will read for a while. Amazing writer. The plot just doesn’t quite do it for me though. It feels like a huge build up into … nothing really special in the end. Too many unaddressed points and questions. Was not a fulfilling read.
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- Joshua
- 04-22-19
Doubt is a big machine.
Really enjoyed this. Reminded me a lot at points of Murakami's, "Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World." Kind of wacky at points, but very good.
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- Lauren
- 04-02-25
My favorite by this author!
Victor is amazing author but I wished he always wrote something longer, this book covers that! There is plenty to digest between each chapter and character. I’m hoping there is a second book coming or a series of his anytime soon! All his books leave you wanting more. From the changling, to Ballad of Black Tom, this book is no different and leaves you wanting more.
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- LT Cooks
- 07-10-22
Weird but amazing!
Although there are some mixed reviews for this book, I found it to be absolutely delicious! If you enter this book expecting it to be a run of the mill mystery or thriller, you will be unhappy. This book is magical and confusing, so leave your preconceived notions at the door. It is weird, tragic, horrifying, endearing, and ends in a way that does not resolve ALL of the questions that are introduced. However, this is what makes the book so wonderful! The biting wit of the main character made me lol many times during this story, which was read by the perfect narrator. I mistakenly thought the book was narrated by the author because the voice matches so well with the main character. My only complaint is that I did not love this narrator's voicing of the female characters. A minor issue, really. Also, I found the book to be unnecessarily long, but I definitely enjoyed it. If you are looking for a very different, weird, and thought-provoking story, give this one a try! I'm now a fan of this author and will definitely explore his other books. This one is not your regular cup of tea, folks! Try something new and savor every minute!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Scott
- 08-31-20
Part X-Files, part Lost, part Blue Velvet
"Empathy is important, it's the only thing separating humans from teenage boys"
The most enjoyable book I've listened to in a long time. Filled with wry observations, clever turns of phrase and a truck load of metaphors.
Mystery upon mystery, strangeness upon strangeness this book draws you in and makes you question everything.
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- joey carbo
- 12-27-21
No
I don’t know what all the reviews are about. The book is set up to look like something really original but it the text and narration (the first person of the book, not the one reading) are mundane.
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