King of the Mississippi
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Jeremy Bobb
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By:
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Mike Freedman
About this listen
A biting, hilarious literary satire of war, business, and contemporary masculinity, set in the cutthroat-but-ridiculous world of management consulting....
King of the Mississippi is an incisive, uproarious dissection of contemporary male vanity and delusion, centered around a "war" for dominance of a prestigious Houston consulting firm. On one side of the conflict is Brock Wharton, an old money ex-jock whose delight in telling clients to downsize is matched only by his firm conviction that people like himself deserve to run the world. On the other is Mike Fink, a newly hired wily former soldier trying to ride his veteran status to the top of a corporate world that lionizes "the troops" without truly understanding them. Brock and Mike are mortal enemies on sight, bitterly divided not only by background and class but by diametrically opposed (yet equally delusional) visions of what it means to "be a man." And as their escalating conflict spirals out of control, it will take them all the way from the hidebound boardrooms and gladiatorial football fields of Texas to the vapid and self-serving upper echelon of Silicon Valley, to the corporatized battlefield of Iraq, all the while serving as a ruthlessly funny takedown of the vacuity and empty machismo of corporate life and alpha-male culture in modern America.
Devastatingly witty, unapologetically scathing, and ultimately surprisingly moving, King of the Mississippi marks the arrival of a unique and scintillating new voice in American fiction, one that boldly punctures the myths of American manhood like no one has since the heyday of The Bonfire of the Vanities and American Psycho.
©2019 Mike Freedman (P)2019 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"I have trouble expressing the sheer joy of reading King of the Mississippi. Not only is this book funny, but it is serious funny, angry funny, insightful funny, wise funny, and just plain old-fashioned funny funny. Stanley Elkin and Joseph Heller - let me introduce you to Mike Freedman." (Tim O'Brien, National Book Award-winning author of Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried)
“Mike Freedman is a brilliant satirist. King of the Mississippi is the best comic novel since Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim.” (Philipp Meyer, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Son and American Rust )
"Mike Freedman's King of the Mississippi takes us on a wild and raucous ride through the "homefront" of contemporary America and the foreign front of "over there," shredding - to hilarious and usually wincing effect - the prevailing pieties of corporate and military culture. Freedman has a keen eye for the damning detail, a quick ear for the unctuous con, which makes him an ideal satirist/realist for our highly disturbed age. Joseph Heller, Terry Southern, Hunter S. Thompson, George Saunders, say hello to the newest member of the American Jesters club." (Ben Fountain, author of National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk)
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Story
Once described by The Washington Post as "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of", Pete Buttigieg, the 36-year-old Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has improbably emerged as one of the nation's most visionary politicians. First elected in 2011, Buttigieg left a successful business career to move back to his hometown, previously tagged by Newsweek as a "dying city", and transformed it into a shining model of urban reinvention.
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Reveals a Person Wise & Experienced & Literate
- By dbbks3 on 03-17-19
By: Pete Buttigieg
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The Freedom Broker
- A Thea Paris Novel
- By: K.J. Howe
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Twenty years ago, a terrified young boy was abducted in the middle of the night by masked intruders while his sister watched, paralyzed with fear. Returned after a harrowing nine months with his captors, Thea's brother has never been the same. This life-shattering experience drove Thea to become what she is today: a world-class freedom broker. Most hostage-recovery work is done at the negotiation table, but when diplomacy fails, Thea leads Quantum Security International's black-ops team on highly sensitive rescue missions.
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Uneven series start but would read the sequel
- By H.C. Trapper on 06-17-17
By: K.J. Howe
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Thank You for My Service
- By: Mat Best, Ross Patterson, Nils Parker
- Narrated by: Mat Best
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Members of the military’s special operations branches share a closely guarded secret: They love their jobs. They relish the opportunity to fight. They are thankful for it, even, and hopeful that maybe they’ll get to kill a bunch of bad guys while they’re at it. You don’t necessarily need to thank them for their service - the pleasure is all theirs. In this hilarious and personal memoir, listeners ride shotgun alongside former Army Ranger and private military contractor and current social media phenomenon Mat Best, into the action and its aftermath, both abroad and at home.
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If Deadpool was a ranger...with less cancer
- By Rick Valkyrie on 08-21-19
By: Mat Best, and others
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My American Journey
- An Autobiography
- By: Colin Powell
- Narrated by: Colin Powell
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Abridged
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Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is history - including Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, and Desert Storm - but a history that until now has been known only on the surface.
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Audio book is abridged!
- By Lydia on 02-11-21
By: Colin Powell
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Transmission
- By: Hari Kunzru
- Narrated by: Hari Kunzru
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Transmission, Hari Kunzru's new novel of love and lunacy, immigration and immunity, introduces a daydreaming Indian computer geek whose luxurious fantasies about life in America are shaken when he accepts a California job offer.
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Thoroughly Enjoyable
- By Don on 07-11-04
By: Hari Kunzru
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The Mirror Test
- America at War in Iraq and Afghanistan
- By: J. Kael Weston
- Narrated by: J. Kael Weston
- Length: 22 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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J. Kael Weston spent seven years on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan working for the US State Department in some of the most dangerous frontline locations. Upon his return home, while traveling the country to pay respect to the dead and wounded, he asked himself: When will these wars end? How will they be remembered and memorialized? What lessons can we learn from them?
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A Must Read
- By Jessica Myrick on 06-04-16
By: J. Kael Weston
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The Fifth Act
- America's End in Afghanistan
- By: Elliot Ackerman
- Narrated by: Elliot Ackerman
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Elliot Ackerman left the American military ten years ago, but his time in Afghanistan and Iraq with the Marines and later as a CIA paramilitary officer marked him indelibly. When the Taliban began to close in on Kabul in August 2021 and the Afghan regime began its death spiral, he found himself pulled back into the conflict. Afghan nationals who had worked closely with the American military and intelligence communities for years now faced brutal reprisal and sought frantically to flee the country with their families.
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A painful but necessary read
- By Tom Hanks on 08-22-22
By: Elliot Ackerman
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Icons and Idiots
- Straight Talk on Leadership
- By: Bob Lutz
- Narrated by: Wes Talbot
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Lutz is revealing the leaders - good, bad, and ugly - who made the strongest impression on him throughout his career. Icons and Idiots is a collection of shocking and often hilarious true stories and the lessons Lutz drew from them. From enduring the sadism of a Marine Corps drill instructor, to working with a washed-up alcoholic, to taking over the reins from a convicted felon, he reflects on the complexities of all-too-human leaders.
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We’ve all known people like these
- By Ron on 05-04-21
By: Bob Lutz
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The Reluctant Spy
- My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror
- By: John Kiriakou, Michael Ruby
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Long before the waterboarding controversy exploded in the media, one CIA agent had already gone public. In a groundbreaking 2007 interview with ABC News, John Kiriakou called waterboarding torture - but admitted that it probably worked. This book, at once a confessional, an adventure story, and a chronicle of Kiriakou's life in the CIA, stands as an important, eloquent piece of testimony from a committed American patriot.
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Fascinating Read about the CIA
- By Nancy on 05-13-10
By: John Kiriakou, and others
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Among Heroes: A U.S. Navy SEAL's True Story of Friendship, Heroism, and the Ultimate Sacrifice
- By: Brandon Webb, John David Mann
- Narrated by: Charlie Ray
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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From Brandon Webb, Navy SEAL sniper and New York Times best-selling author, comes his account of the eight friends and fellow SEALs who made the ultimate sacrifice. As a Navy SEAL, Webb rose to the top of the world's most elite sniper corps, experiencing years of punishing training and combat missions from the Persian Gulf to Afghanistan. Along the way, Webb served beside, trained, and supported men he came to know not just as fellow warriors, but as friends and, eventually, as heroes.
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Respect
- By Dominick on 05-29-15
By: Brandon Webb, and others
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Unlabel
- Selling You Without Selling Out
- By: Marc Ecko
- Narrated by: Todd Haberkorn, Marc Ecko
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Instructive as it is innovative, Unlabel will empower you to channel your creativity, find the courage to defy convention, and summon the confidence to act and compete in any environment. This blueprint will teach you how to grow both creatively and commercially by testing your personal brand against the principles of the Authenticity Formula. Marc Eckō shares the bruising mistakes and remarkable triumphs that reveal the truth behind his success, growing from a misfit kid airbrushing T-shirts in his parents' garage to the bold creator of two hugely successful branded platforms.
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...So Real, It Should Be Illegal
- By 2Fresh on 01-20-16
By: Marc Ecko
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Class 11
- Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class
- By: T.J. Waters
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Written by one of its own graduates, Class 11: Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class is an insider's view of the first CIA training class after September 11, 2001 - a look at the most elite and secretive espionage training program in the country.
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Save Your Money
- By Daniel on 11-27-06
By: T.J. Waters