
Great Expectations
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Aaron Goodson
About this listen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A historic presidential campaign changes the trajectory of a young Black man’s life in this “coming of age story that captures the soul of America” (The Washington Post), the debut novel from The New Yorker staff writer and Pulitzer Prize finalist Vinson Cunningham.
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD/JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK
“One of the smartest and most involving political novels I’ve read in ages.”—The Wall Street Journal
ONE OF SLATE’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, NPR, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Town & Country, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Electric Lit, Current, WBEZ
I’d seen the Senator speak a few times before my life got caught up, however distantly, with his, but the first time I can remember paying real attention was when he delivered the speech announcing his run for the Presidency.
When David first hears the Senator from Illinois speak, he feels deep ambivalence. Intrigued by the Senator’s idealistic rhetoric, David also wonders how he’ll balance the fervent belief and inevitable compromises it will take to become the United States’ first Black president.
Great Expectations is about David’s eighteen months working for the Senator's presidential campaign. Along the way David meets a myriad of people who raise a set of questions—questions of history, art, race, religion, and fatherhood—that force David to look at his own life anew and come to terms with his identity as a young Black man and father in America.
Meditating on politics and politicians, religion and preachers, fathers and family, Great Expectations is both an emotionally resonant coming-of-age story and a rich novel of ideas, marking the arrival of a major new writer.
©2024 Vinson Cunningham (P)2024 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Rarer is a debut that announces a talent like Cunningham’s.”—The New York Times
“Vinson Cunningham’s sparkling debut novel, set during the Obama campaign, earns its comparisons to Henry James.”—Slate
“Expertly captures a distinct moment in American history.”—Town & Country
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Story
The master of the Providence plantation in Barbados gathers his slaves and announces the king has decreed an end to slavery. As of the following day, the Emancipation Act of 1834 will come into effect. The cries of joy fall silent when he announces that they are no longer his slaves; they are now his apprentices. No one can leave. They must work for him for another six years. Freedom is just another name for the life they have always lived. So Rachel runs.
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Good debut.. with a few quarrels in my opinion
- By Alize on 07-24-23
By: Eleanor Shearer
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The Book of George
- A Novel
- By: Kate Greathead
- Narrated by: Blair Baker
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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If you haven’t had the misfortune of dating a George, you know someone who has. He’s a young man brimming with potential but incapable of following through; sweet yet noncommittal to his long-suffering girlfriend; distant from but still reliant on his mother; charmingly funny one minute, sullenly brooding the next. Here, Kate Greathead paints one particular, unforgettable George in a series of droll and surprisingly poignant snapshots of his life over two decades.
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Lots of potential, little payoff
- By Chalin Smith on 10-24-24
By: Kate Greathead
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The Book Censor's Library
- A Novel
- By: Bothayna Al-Essa, Ranya Abdelrahman - translator, Sawad Hussain - translator
- Narrated by: Cindy Kay
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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The new book censor hasn't slept soundly in weeks. By day he combs through manuscripts at a government office, looking for anything that would make a book unfit to publish-allusions to queerness, unapproved religions, any mention of life before the Revolution. By night the characters of literary classics crowd his dreams, and pilfered novels pile up in the house he shares with his wife and daughter. As the siren song of forbidden reading continues to beckon, he descends into a netherworld of resistance fighters, undercover booksellers, and outlaw librarians.
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Thought-provoking and original
- By Alex, artiste of the perfect pairing on 04-28-25
By: Bothayna Al-Essa, and others
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Liars
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Manguso
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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When Jane, an aspiring writer, meets filmmaker John Bridges, they both want the same things: to be in love, to live a successful, creative life, and to be happy. When they marry, Jane believes she has found everything she was looking for, including—a few years later—all the attendant joys and labors of motherhood. But it’s not long until Jane finds herself subsumed by John’s ambitions, whims, and ego; in short, she becomes a wife.
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Beautiful
- By Heather Demeter on 08-05-24
By: Sarah Manguso
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The Book of Love
- A Novel
- By: Kelly Link
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 23 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In the acclaimed first novel from short story virtuoso and Pulitzer Prize finalist Kelly Link, three teenagers become pawns in a supernatural power struggle.
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Great book.
- By T on 04-06-25
By: Kelly Link
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Listen to Your Sister
- A Novel
- By: Neena Viel
- Narrated by: Eric Lockley, Kristolyn Lloyd, Zeno Robinson
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Twenty-five year old Calla Williams is struggling since becoming guardian to her brother, Jamie. Calla is overwhelmed and tired of being the one who makes sacrifices to keep the family together. When Jamie’s actions at a protest spiral out of control, the siblings must go on the run. Taking refuge in a remote cabin that looks like it belongs on a slasher movie poster rather than an AirBNB, the siblings now face a new threat where their lives–and reality–hang in the balance. Their sister always warned them about her nightmares. They really should have listened.
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Loved the brothers and their sister
- By Cynthia W on 05-10-25
By: Neena Viel
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You Dreamed of Empires
- A Novel
- By: Álvaro Enrigue, Natasha Wimmer - translator
- Narrated by: Gabriel Porras
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés enters the city of Tenochtitlan – today's Mexico City. Later that day, he will meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures.
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Confusing and Difficult to Understand
- By francine steelman on 03-02-24
By: Álvaro Enrigue, and others
I'll go out on a limb and assume that no familiarity with Charles Dickens classic novel of the same name is needed based on my not feeling left out reading the text & I'll also go out on a limb and suggest that after one novel its safe to say that Vinson Cunningham is one of our best Prose stylists.
Cunnigham's prose, & I hope he would appreciate this since it's evident he is a basketball fan based on the time David spent waxing poetic about the merits of Paul Pierce (!) (I must say, I was elated while listening to thoughts on Paul Pierce in a novel. There is a mythological leap - it could just be me here - that people, places & things take when they are centered, if even for the briefest of moments in a novel, & the fact that Paul Pierce was given a decent amount of runway is something I am grateful for as an enormous basketball fan & something that inspires me & ways that I hope to display in the future. Anyway), is so very poised. His Prose is like Dame Lillard in the meme where his teammates are mobbing him and he just calmly stares into the camera, as if he didn't just seal the deal in the Blazers first round series against OKC with one of the most memorable buzzer beaters we've seen. That poise & polish is enough to carry just about any story that Cunningham wanted to tell.
Whether it's brief thoughts on basketball or more lengthy ruminations on religion, belief, influence, power, money, status, art, race, fatherhood. There's something here for all of us & that something, whatever it is, is written in one of the best prose styles available to us.
Portrait of an Artist as a Black Man
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Invisible Man vibes
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nicely done
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Enjoyable, Insightful, & Smart
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Beautifully written, deeply engaging memoir / fiction
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References to real people
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This was one of the worst books I ever read. I struggled through it. What a waste of time.
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I also did not like the narration at all. Far too many unnecessary pauses or hesitations within sentences that should have just flowed smoothly.
Not the political story I expected
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