
Black Bottom Saints
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Prentice Onayemi
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Imani Parks
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By:
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Alice Randall
About this listen
An enthralling literary tour-de-force that pays tribute to Detroit's legendary neighborhood, a mecca for jazz, sports, and politics, Black Bottom Saints is a powerful blend of fact and imagination reminiscent of E.L. Doctorow's classic novel Ragtime and Marlon James' Man Booker Award-winning masterpiece, A Brief History of Seven Killings.
From the Great Depression through the post-World War II years, Joseph “Ziggy” Johnson has been the pulse of Detroit’s famous Black Bottom. A celebrated gossip columnist for the city’s African-American newspaper, the Michigan Chronicle, he is also the emcee of one of the hottest night clubs, where he’s rubbed elbows with the legendary Black artists of the era, including Ethel Waters, Billy Eckstein, and Count Basie. Ziggy is also the founder and dean of the Ziggy Johnson School of Theater. But now the doyen of Black Bottom is ready to hang up his many dapper hats.
As he lays dying in the Black-owned-and-operated Kirkwood Hospital, Ziggy reflects on his life, the community that was the center of his world, and the remarkable people who helped shape it.
Inspired by the Catholic Saints Day Books, Ziggy curates his own list of Black Bottom’s venerable "52 Saints". Among them are a vulnerable Dinah Washington, a defiant Joe Louis, and a raucous Bricktop. Randall balances the stories of these larger-than-life "Saints" with local heroes who became household names, enthralling men and women whose unstoppable ambition, love of style, and faith in community made this Black Midwestern neighborhood the rival of New York City’s Harlem.
Accompanying these “tributes” are thoughtfully paired cocktails - special drinks that capture the essence of each of Ziggy’s saints - libations as strong and satisfying as Alice Randall’s wholly original view of a place and time unlike any other.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Alice Randall (P)2020 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Overall
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In 1822, a secret family moves into a secret cabin some thirty miles northeast of Baltimore, to farm, to hide, and to bear ten children over the course of the next sixteen years. Junius Booth—breadwinner, celebrated Shakespearean actor, and master of the house in more ways than one—is at once a mesmerizing talent and a man of terrifying instability. One by one the children arrive, as year by year, the country draws frighteningly closer to the boiling point of secession and civil war.
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Fascinating
- By E. Creagh on 06-20-22
By: Karen Joy Fowler
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Uncle Tom's Children
- By: Richard Wright
- Narrated by: Adam Lazarre-White
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Originally published in 1938, Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of novellas, was the first book from Richard Wright, who would go on to win international renown for his powerful and visceral depiction of the Black experience. Set in the American Deep South, each of the powerful and devastating stories in Uncle Tom's Children concerns an aspect of the lives of Black people in the post-slavery era, exploring their resistance to white racism and oppression. The collection also includes a personal essay by Wright titled "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow."
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I am Speechless, Absolutely Breath Taking!,
- By Lisalisa on 09-26-20
By: Richard Wright
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A Dreadful Splendor
- A Novel
- By: B.R. Myers
- Narrated by: Olivia Vinall
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In Victorian London, Genevieve Timmons poses as a spiritualist to swindle wealthy mourners—until one misstep lands her in a jail cell awaiting the noose. Then a stranger arrives to make her a peculiar offer. The lord he serves, Mr. Pemberton, has been inconsolable since the tragic death of his beautiful bride-to-be. If Genevieve can perform a séance persuasive enough to bring the young lord peace, she will win her freedom.
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Excellent!
- By Kimberly A. Minardi on 09-20-22
By: B.R. Myers
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Last Summer on State Street
- By: Toya Wolfe
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Felicia “Fe Fe” Stevens is living with her vigilantly loving mother and older teenaged brother, whom she adores, in building 4950 of Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes. It’s the summer of 1999, and her high-rise is next in line to be torn down by the Chicago Housing Authority. She, with the devout Precious Brown and Stacia Buchanan, daughter of a Gangster Disciple Queen-Pin, form a tentative trio and, for a brief moment, carve out for themselves a simple life of Double Dutch and innocence.
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This book was depressing and a slow burn
- By mel on 08-18-22
By: Toya Wolfe
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Antelope Woman
- A Novel
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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When Klaus Shawano abducts Sweetheart Calico, the seductive Indian woman who has stolen his heart, and takes her far from her native Montana plains to his own Minneapolis home, he cannot begin to imagine the eventual ramifications his brazen act will entail. Shawano’s mysterious Antelope Woman has utterly mesmerized him - and soon proves to be a bewitching agent of chaos whose effect on others is disturbing and irresistible, as she alters the shape of things around her and the shape of things to come.
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Longing
- By LARA BIRCHLER on 01-03-24
By: Louise Erdrich
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Julia
- A Novel
- By: Sandra Newman
- Narrated by: Louise Brealey
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Julia Worthing is a mechanic, working in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. It’s 1984, and Britain (now called Airstrip One) has long been absorbed into the larger trans-Atlantic nation of Oceania. Oceania has been at war for as long as anyone can remember, and is ruled by an ultra-totalitarian Party, whose leader is a quasi-mythical figure called Big Brother. In short, everything about this world is as it is in Orwell’s 1984.
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Double plus good and it hurts
- By WoofUsing ThisMonopoly on 10-30-23
By: Sandra Newman
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Great Circle
- A Novel
- By: Maggie Shipstead
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Alex McKenna
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There—after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes—Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe.
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So glad I was drawn to this book.
- By timbo on 05-23-21
By: Maggie Shipstead
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Harlem Shuffle
- A Novel
- By: Colson Whitehead
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Ray Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time.
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Best Read/Listen on Audible
- By Henry Posner on 09-22-21
By: Colson Whitehead
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Perfect Peace
- A Novel
- By: Daniel Black
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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When the seventh child of the Peace family, named Perfect, turns eight, her mother, Emma Jean, tells her bewildered daughter, "You was born a boy. I made you a girl. But that ain't what you was supposed to be. So from now on, you gon' be a boy. It'll be a little strange at first, but you'll get used to it, and this'll be over after while." From this point forward, his life becomes a bizarre kaleidoscope of events. Meanwhile, the Peace family is forced to question everything they thought they knew about gender, sexuality, unconditional love, and fulfillment.
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What a great book!
- By JoJo on 09-03-16
By: Daniel Black
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Mother Land
- A Novel
- By: Leah Franqui
- Narrated by: Amy McFadden
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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When Rachel Meyer, a 30-something foodie from New York, agrees to move to Mumbai with her Indian-born husband, Dhruv, she knows some culture shock is inevitable. Blessed with a curious mind and an independent spirit, Rachel is determined to learn her way around the hot, noisy, seemingly infinite metropolis she now calls home. But the expat American’s sense of adventure is sorely tested when her mother-in-law, Swati, suddenly arrives from Kolkata - 1,000 miles away - alone, with an even more shocking announcement: She’s left her husband of more than 40 years and moving in with them.
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This could have been so good...
- By Amazon Customer on 09-01-20
By: Leah Franqui
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A Pillar of Iron
- A Novel of Ancient Rome
- By: Taylor Caldwell
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 33 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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From his birth in 106 BC in the hill town of Arpinum, Cicero, the educated son of a wealthy member of the equestrian order, is destined for greatness. From his tumultuous family life to his tenuous alliance with Julius Caesar to a fateful love affair with the Roman empress Livia and, finally, to the political role that will make him a target of powerful enemies, A Pillar of Iron is the story of Cicero's legacy as one the greatest influences on Western civilization.
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wrong genre
- By Amazon Customer on 06-27-21
By: Taylor Caldwell
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Under the Light of the Italian Moon
- By: Jennifer Anton
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Nina Argenta doesn’t want the traditional life of a rural Italian woman. The daughter of a strong-willed midwife, she is determined to define her own destiny. But when her brother emigrates to America, she promises her mother to never leave. When childhood friend Pietro Pante briefly returns to their mountain town, passion between them ignites while Mussolini forces political tensions to rise. Just as their romance deepens, Pietro must leave again for work in the coal mines of America. Nina is torn between joining him and her commitment to Italy and her mother.
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Bravo!
- By BlueBoots6 on 05-01-24
By: Jennifer Anton
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The Break-Up Book Club
- By: Wendy Wax
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber, Nicole Lewis, Renata Friedman, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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On paper, Jazmine, Judith, Erin, and Sara have little in common - they’re very different people leading very different lives. And yet at book club meetings in an historic carriage house turned bookstore, they bond over a shared love of reading (and more than a little wine) as well as the growing realization that their lives are not turning out like they expected.
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Audio Errors
- By Madeleine on 06-08-21
By: Wendy Wax
The structure is creative and fun with a cocktail for each “Black Bottom Saint”. I want to try some of these cocktails!
Thank you Alice Randall for another lovely novel!
History through character studies
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The real Black people do not exist only as a reaction to white evil or white compassion. We are our own soul and we live in no shadow cast by sin. This book stands as evidence of our humanity and no false history or Hollywood perversion can change that.
An Incredible World Hidden In Plain Sight.
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Interesting and Deep
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I selected this book for entertainment and ended up getting educated too. This was one of the best if not the best narrated book that I’ve ever listened too which only added to the experience. Absolutely wonderful read!
A fabulous listen.
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Amazing book
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Entrancing engaging inspirational
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Stories rooted in the legendary Detroit neighborho
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It is sad when reading this how it feels like we have made so little progress in some areas. Many of the over arching themes still ring true today. I got a better understanding of why cultural appropriation is such a sensitive topic because the book touches on the theft of culture. The book touches on how integration can have a tendency to steam roll over black history. There were many items like this I knew about, but never focused on that this book forced me to really think about.
I did not realize how much Iiked this book until I circled back to reread a few of my favorite chapters and how hard they hit me on the 2nd reading.
Interesting Read. Too Much In Common with Today
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Storytelling at its best
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For Detroit-lovers and students of black culture
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