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Gorilla and the Bird
- A Memoir of Madness and a Mother's Love
- Narrated by: Zack McDermott
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
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Publisher's summary
The story of a young man fighting to recover from a devastating psychotic break and the mother who refuses to give up on him.
Zack McDermott, a 26-year-old Brooklyn public defender, woke up one morning convinced he was being filmed, Truman Show-style, as part of an audition for a TV pilot. This was it - his big dreams were finally coming true. Every passerby was an actor; every car would magically stop for him; everything he saw was a cue from "The Producer" to help inspire the performance of a lifetime. After a manic spree around Manhattan, Zack, who is bipolar, was arrested on a subway platform and admitted to Bellevue Hospital.
So begins the story of Zack's freefall into psychosis and his desperate, poignant, often darkly funny struggle to claw his way back to sanity, regain his identity, and rebuild some semblance of a stable life. It's a journey that will take him from New York City back to his Kansas roots and to the one person who might be able to save him, his tough, big-hearted Midwestern mother, nicknamed the Bird, whose fierce and steadfast love is the light in Zack's dark world.
Before his odyssey is over, Zack will be tackled by guards in mental wards, run naked through cornfields, receive secret messages from the TV, befriend a former Navy SEAL and his talking stuffed monkey, and see the Virgin Mary in the whorls of his own back hair. But with the Bird's help, he just might have a shot at pulling through, starting over, and maybe even meeting a woman who can love him back, bipolar and all.
Written with raw emotional power, humor, and tenderness, Gorilla and the Bird is a bravely honest account of a young man's unraveling and the relationship that saves him.
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Story
There was a time when Ralphie May was one of the biggest stand-up comedians in the country, both by ticket sales and by tonnage. While some things changed - Ralphie lost half his body weight - others did not: He will be remembered as one of the most successful comics of his time. Completed just months before his untimely passing, in This Might Get a Little Heavy, Ralphie takes listeners on a behind-the-scenes tour of his life and career, one that winds across the country, over obstacles, beyond heartbreak, and through the golden age of stand-up.
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brilliant and tragic
- By Timothy Trujillo on 08-12-18
By: Ralphie May, and others
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Stories I'd Tell in Bars
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster, John Fletcher
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Older, but not wiser, Lancaster goes back to basics in this hilarious essay collection about everything from taking community policing classes to accidentally getting high with her waiter after a fancy dinner. These are the tales she'd tell if she met you in a bar... if she weren't too lazy to put on pants and go to a bar. Offering advice ranging from how to remain happily married to a man who refuses to blow his damn nose already to not creating An Incident at the cheese counter during an attempt at Whole30, she's you, only louder.
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self absorbed
- By D D H on 06-15-19
By: Jen Lancaster
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May We Be Forgiven
- By: A. M. Homes
- Narrated by: Andy Paris
- Length: 20 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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May We Be Forgiven, a darkly comic novel of 21st-century domestic life, stars Harold Silver, a historian who's always been jealous of his successful brother, George. But when the hot-tempered George is institutionalized for committing a violent act, Harold finds himself comforting his brother's wife and children. What follows is a scathing examination of a family so fractured it may never be whole again.
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Give this one a try!
- By JWB on 02-13-13
By: A. M. Homes
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No Angel
- My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels
- By: Jay Dobyns, Nils Johnson-Shelton
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Getting shot in the chest as a rookie ATF agent, bartering for machine guns, throttling down the highway at 100 miles per hour, and responding to a full-scale, bloody riot between the Hells Angels and their rivals, the Mongols - these are just a few of the high-adrenaline experiences Jay Dobyns recounts in this action-packed, hard to imagine, but true story of how he infiltrated the legendary Hells Angels.
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"I would avoid this one..."
- By Chris on 12-27-12
By: Jay Dobyns, and others
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Please Ignore Vera Dietz
- By: A. S. King
- Narrated by: Lynde Houck
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything. So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone - the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to? Edgy and gripping, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is an unforgettable novel: Smart, funny, dramatic, and always surprising.
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Moving, disturbing, and humorous
- By Julie on 08-26-11
By: A. S. King
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I Like You Just the Way I Am
- Stories About Me and Some Other People
- By: Jenny Mollen
- Narrated by: Jenny Mollen
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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Jenny Mollen is an actress and writer living in Los Angeles. She is also a wife, married to a famous guy (which is annoying only because he gets free shit and she doesn't). She doesn't want much from life. Just to be loved - by everybody: her parents, her dogs, her ex-boyfriends, her ex-boyfriends' dogs, her husband, her husband's ex-girlfriends, her husband's ex-girlfriend's new boyfriends, etc.
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Hmm...Why am I listening to a bio of Jenny Mollen?
- By Elisabeth W. on 09-16-15
By: Jenny Mollen
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Picking Cotton
- Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption
- By: Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, Erin Torneo, Ronald Cotton
- Narrated by: Richard Allen, Karen White
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Jennifer Thompson was raped at knifepoint by a man who broke into her apartment while she slept. She was able to escape and eventually identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Ronald insisted that she was mistaken - but Jennifer's positive identification was the compelling evidence that put him behind bars. After 11 years, Ronald was allowed to take a DNA test that proved his innocence. He was released after serving more than a decade in prison for a crime he never committed.
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Listen for the story not the writing
- By Professor Sombrero on 06-13-09
By: Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, and others
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The Pursuit of Happyness (Abridged)
- By: Chris Gardner
- Narrated by: Andre Blake
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
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At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.
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Very Good Story!
- By Lito Da Critic on 06-02-06
By: Chris Gardner
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Miss Fortune
- Fresh Perspectives on Having It All from Someone Who Is Not Okay
- By: Lauren Weedman
- Narrated by: Lauren Weedman
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Lauren Weedman is not okay. She's living what should be the good life in sunny Los Angeles. After a gig as a correspondent with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, she scored parts in blockbuster movies, which led to memorable recurring roles on HBO's Hung and Looking. She had a loving husband and an adorable baby boy. In these comedic essays, she turns a piercingly observant, darkly funny lens on the ways her life is actually not okay.
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Good
- By Ajules29 on 04-02-16
By: Lauren Weedman
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A Bad Idea I'm About to Do
- True Tales of Seriously Poor Judgment and Stunningly Awkward Adventure
- By: Chris Gethard
- Narrated by: Chris Gethard
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Chris Gethard has often found himself in awkward situations most people, including you, probably would have safely avoided. The good news is now, thanks to this book, you can enjoy the painfully funny consequences of his unfortunate decisions at a safe distance. A Bad Idea I'm About to Do invites listeners to join Chris as he navigates an adolescence and adulthood mired in hilariously ill-fated nerdom, and to take comfort in the fact that - as his experiences often prove - things could always be much, much worse.
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Loved it!!!
- By Amber G on 10-02-20
By: Chris Gethard
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The Postmortal
- A Novel
- By: Drew Magary
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In a world where an anti-aging cure is available worldwide, immortality comes with its own unique problems. John Farrell is about to get "The Cure". Old age can never kill him now. The only problem is, everything else still can.
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Interesting concept but bleak and wearing
- By Amazon Customer on 05-15-12
By: Drew Magary
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You're Better than Me
- A Memoir
- By: Bonnie McFarlane
- Narrated by: Bonnie McFarlane, Alexander Cendese
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In the spirit of Mindy Kaling, Kelly Oxford, and Sarah Silverman, a compulsively listenable and outrageously funny memoir of growing up as a fish out of water, finding your voice, and embracing your inner crazy person from popular actress, writer, and comedian Bonnie McFarlane.
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Sandy!!! She wrote a book...it's crazy, a book!!!
- By Jonathan Placek on 03-02-16
By: Bonnie McFarlane
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The Upside
- A Memoir
- By: Abdel Sellou
- Narrated by: Ray Chase
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1992, Count Phillippe Pozzo di Borgo, on the heels of his wife's diagnosis with a terminal illness, suffered a paragliding accident that left him a quadriplegic. Forty-two years old, trapped inside his luxurious Paris town house, he was an outcast for the first time in his life. Abdel, an unemployed Algerian immigrant who had been an outcast for his entire existence, would become Phillipe's unlikely caretaker. Quick-thinking, unsentimental, and more than a little wild, Abdel surprises both himself and his employer.
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loved it
- By RockyDog on 01-31-19
By: Abdel Sellou
What listeners say about Gorilla and the Bird
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- B.R.
- 06-20-18
Beautifully written, poignantly told experience of bipolar
McDermont provides an excellent contribution to the “walk in my shoes”
literature about bipolar disease. Hats off to the gorilla and especially to the bird who offers a role model for hanging in.
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- V. Pierce
- 07-20-19
It doesn’t get more real than this
Zack McDermott’s personal story has done more to help reduce the stigma of bipolar disorder than anything else I have ever read on the subject. I wish him and his family much success - and constant stability -going forward.
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- Hummingbird
- 08-20-20
Powerful. Insightful into Bipolar and society
1. Brave
2 thank you to the author and his Mom the Bird. The story is powerful, compelling and inspiring.
3. Insightful into society. Our criminal justice and mental health issues as well as lower income challenges and the ongoing cycles
4. Insights into mental illness.
5. Am raising my proverbial pin pins for Zach and his family and his new wife. Thank you for sharing your roadmap to managing his/your illness and also offering a glimpse into the greater society ills - like the circle of mental illness/addiction/prison ...challenges As a society we have yet to figure out. Expanded my understanding and compassion.
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- E
- 01-07-20
Best account of mental illness I’ve heard
This is a truly different mental illness memoir in the best possible way. It is read by the author and I think that made a difference in the immersion in the novel I experienced. Not the listen I expected but absolutely cannot recommend enough.
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- carpwander
- 08-23-19
Heartbreaking story retold beautifully
The author’s narration is excellent. McDermott’s humor, humility and honesty draws the listener into his terrifying fight with madness. Gorilla and Bird is full of wonderfully wry observations and vivid descriptions of persons and places. Highly recommend.
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- JeSonge
- 02-20-21
Thoroughly enjoyed this book!
My daughter has bipolar disorder, though she does not struggle with bipolar one or psychosis, the story is still realatable as well as informative. This is the best personal memoir I've read of someone with bipolar disorder (and I loved Carrie Fisher's Postcards From the Edge). It's heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time; you'll laugh and you'll ugly cry. The author is the perfect narrator. I enjoyed his cadence and voice as well as the emotional authenticity you can hear coming through. I couldn't stop listening and finished it in two days.
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- Anonymous User
- 12-14-17
Amazing Grace, your Mom beat 800lb MeToo?
MeToo. Best voice (perfect inflection-I thank U Nick-you are the best)I cried through to end.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-02-19
such a great writer and storyteller. superb!
this book will be a book I will come back to. what a wonderful author...such visual writing, the characters in the book will make you laugh and tear up with love. I fully reccomend this and cant wait yo see what is next for the author
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- Ivey Rose Coss
- 01-24-19
Help, hope & hilarity...
Zach Zach Zach.... how honest and wonderful was this book?!?!? Thank you for writing this. Thank you for not pulling any punches. Thank you for sharing every corner and frayed end of your emotional spectrum.
For those of you on the fence, there is no sugar coating in these pages. None. But who wants sugar on the rim of their double margarita?!??! Gross.
Zach’s story will have you spitting your coffee out of your mouth with hilarity, weeping with him and his struggle, and even tasting the sour-sweetness of bologna and cigarettes as you go down the twisted rabbit hole and into the rough neighborhood of mental illness.
If you have a loved one with mental illness and you’re looking for a laugh and some hope, Zach is here for you. He is brilliant as well as hilarious, and he gives you velvet lined, box seats into his psychosis.
If you love someone with a mental illness...
Main point = IT’S NOT THEIR FAULT! So don’t be an ass hole.
Love you Zach, love this book. Thank you.
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- mckibs
- 06-19-19
OH. HELL. YES.
This is the kind of modern memoir I'm talkin' about! This honesty is what I crave. The vulnerability necessary to write this story down and release it to the world is beautiful, connecting and refreshing AF. Thank you Zack McDermott for sharing your struggle and success with all of us! I'm truly impressed with this storytelling and love your voice. **so glad you read your own audiobook. Bigger impact, for sure.
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