The Boys in the Bunkhouse
Servitude and Salvation in the Heartland
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Narrated by:
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Fred Sanders
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By:
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Dan Barry
About this listen
With this Dickensian tale from America's heartland, New York Times writer and columnist Dan Barry tells the harrowing yet uplifting story of the exploitation and abuse of a resilient group of men with intellectual disabilities and the heroic efforts of those who helped them to find justice and reclaim their lives.
In the tiny Iowa farm town of Atalissa, dozens of men, all with intellectual disabilities and all from Texas, lived in an old schoolhouse. Before dawn each morning, they were bussed to a nearby processing plant, where they eviscerated turkeys in return for food, lodging, and $65 a month. They lived in near servitude for more than 30 years, enduring increasing neglect, exploitation, and physical and emotional abuse - until state social workers, local journalists, and one tenacious labor lawyer helped these men achieve freedom.
Drawing on exhaustive interviews, Dan Barry dives deeply into the lives of the men, recording their memories of suffering, loneliness, and fleeting joy as well as the undying hope they maintained despite their traumatic circumstances. Barry explores how a small Iowa town remained oblivious to the plight of these men, analyzes the many causes for such profound and chronic negligence, and lays out the impact of the men's dramatic court case, which has spurred advocates - including President Obama - to push for just pay and improved working conditions for people living with disabilities.
A luminous work of social justice, told with compassion and compelling detail, The Boys in the Bunkhouse is more than just inspired storytelling. It is a clarion call for a vigilance that ensures inclusion and dignity for all.
©2016 Dan Barry (P)2016 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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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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Driving on the Rim
- By: Thomas McGuane
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The unforgettable voyager of this dark picaresque is I. B. "Berl" Pickett, M.D., whose die was probably cast the moment his mother thought to name him after Irving Berlin. Other insults piled on apace thereafter: the spasms of Pentecostal Sunday worship; the social debilitation of following his parents' itinerant rug-shampooing business; the erotic initiation at the hands of his aunt. It's hard to imagine what would have become of him had he not gone to medical school.
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Delightful
- By Roy on 01-05-11
By: Thomas McGuane
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Born Bright
- A Young Girl's Journey from Nothing to Something in America
- By: C. Nicole Mason
- Narrated by: Robin Eller
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Born Bright, C. Nicole Mason's powerful memoir, is a story of reconciliation, constrained choices, and life on the other side of the tracks. Born in the 1970s in Los Angeles, California, Mason was raised by a beautiful but volatile 16-year-old single mother. Early on, she learned to navigate between an unpredictable home life and school, where she excelled. By high school, Mason was seamlessly straddling two worlds.
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Solid Book
- By Daryl on 11-06-16
By: C. Nicole Mason
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Wilde Lake
- A Novel
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney, Nicole Poole
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Luisa "Lu" Brant is the newly elected - and first female - state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It's not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard County doesn't see many homicides.
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In a word saccharine and boring
- By Rena on 05-12-16
By: Laura Lippman
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Detroit
- An American Autopsy
- By: Charlie LeDuff
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In the heart of America, a metropolis is quietly destroying itself. Detroit, once the richest city in the nation, is now its poorest. Once the vanguard of America’s machine age - mass production, automobiles, and blue-collar jobs - Detroit is now America’s capital for unemployment, illiteracy, foreclosure, and dropouts. With the steel-eyed reportage that has become his trademark and the righteous indignation that only a native son can possess, journalist Charlie LeDuff sets out to uncover what has brought low this once-vibrant city, his city.
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WOW
- By Avid Reader and Listener on 07-09-13
By: Charlie LeDuff
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The Girls of Atomic City
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
- By: Denise Kiernan
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians - many of them young women from small towns across the South - were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains.
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Important story of this secret city
- By CBlox on 11-14-13
By: Denise Kiernan
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Twentynine Palms
- A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave
- By: Deanne Stillman
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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August 2, 1991, Twentynine Palms, California: a troubled Marine who has recently returned from the Gulf War savagely murders two young girls. One was about to turn 16, the other 21. Exquisitely and inexorably, Deanne Stillman uses this tragedy as a prism through which she examines a rootless culture of fatherless families, shattered dreams, and relentless violence. She also traces the family histories of each murder victim back for generations, in one case to the Donner Party and the other to a shack in the Philippines.
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Ugh...
- By Ashley on 11-03-20
By: Deanne Stillman
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Methland
- The Death and Life of an American Small Town
- By: Nick Reding
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Crystal methamphetamine is widely considered to be the most dangerous drug in the world, and nowhere is that more true than in the small towns of the American heartland. Methland tells the story of Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), which, like thousands of other small towns across the country, has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy, and an out-migration of people.
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Beautifully written, but insubstantial
- By Flavius Krakdaddius on 02-10-10
By: Nick Reding
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Once Upon a Town
- The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen
- By: Bob Greene
- Narrated by: Fritz Weaver
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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During World War II, American soldiers from every city and walk of life rolled through North Platte, Nebraska, on troop trains, en route to Europe and the Pacific. The tiny town transformed its modest railroad depot into the North Platte Canteen, a place where soldiers could enjoy coffee, music, home-cooked food, magazines, and friendly conversation during a stopover that lasted only a few minutes.
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Long Tale of a Truly Inspiring Short Tale
- By Suzy on 02-25-11
By: Bob Greene
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The Song and the Silence
- A Story About Family, Race, and What Was Revealed in a Small Town in the Mississippi Delta While Searching for Booker Wright
- By: Yvette Johnson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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"Have to keep that smile", said Booker Wright in the 1966 NBC documentary Mississippi: A Self-Portrait. At the time Wright was a waiter in a Whites-only restaurant and a local business owner who would become an unwitting icon of the civil rights movement. For he did the unthinkable: Before a national audience, he described what life was truly like for the Black people of Greenwood, Mississippi.
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Exceeded every expectation
- By ZeeJ84 on 05-23-21
By: Yvette Johnson
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Street of Eternal Happiness
- Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road
- By: Rob Schmitz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Modern Shanghai: a global city in the midst of a renaissance, where dreamers arrive each day to partake in a mad torrent of capital, ideas, and opportunity. Marketplace's Rob Schmitz is one of them. He immerses himself in his neighborhood, forging deep relationships with ordinary people who see in the city's sleek skyline a brighter future, and a chance to rewrite their destinies.
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Deserving of better audio
- By Rachael on 02-19-18
By: Rob Schmitz
What listeners say about The Boys in the Bunkhouse
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Krystyn Shari
- 09-08-16
You thought things like this didn't happen anymore
Very well read, made me openly weep in public, thankfully the end bought needed closure
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- Howard
- 06-30-16
Let's not be too judgmental.....
This book is valuable only if we think about the situation it describes thoroughly and circumspectly. While there is no question that the men in this story were taken advantage of, there is hardly a mentally challenged person walking on this earth who will avoid that altogether. The danger of stories like this lies in society's overreaction. Before hating these particular abusers one would do well to study the long term effects of deinstitutionalization and how it has contributed to homelessness. Mentally handicapped people can be a danger to themselves and the public. Part of the problem is that so few high quality people will deign to work with this class. Providing these people with honest jobs is better than allowing them to fend for themselves or be forever on the dehumanizing dole. This situation clearly got out of hand but a similar program that included watchfulness and socially accepted standards for health and well-being of the persons would go a long way toward giving the disabled the dignity that so often eludes them.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Emily Raney
- 12-04-18
Phenomenal
I've listened to this twice within the last two years, so moving. We'll written and narrated, I would highly recommend.
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- Gillian
- 12-01-16
Our Brothers' Keepers?
"The Boys in the Bunkhouse" could be a cold story with shock value to jazz it up. Instead, it's an elegantly written story of flesh-and-blood men caught in a disgusting and deplorable situation. You get to know the men, their dreams and fears. Mostly, they dream of families, though phone numbers they have are long since disconnected; of retirement in a lovely home that their wages built in Texas; of ownership of tiny things most of us take for granted. And they fear their supervisors and people letting them down yet again.
While the book chronicles the hardcore nature of the jobs they do, the abusive environments they work and live in, their horrific physical ailments, it comes off as neither detached nor sensationalized. They're simply facts of year in, year out reality for the men.
The tragedy is that complaints started as early as 1974, and actions could have been taken time and time again. Yet somewhere along the way, people forgot that the "Henry Boys" were living, feeling human beings. And while there is wonderment that the people of Atalissa never spoke up... or noticed... that things were very wrong comes off as purely believable given the even-handed writing of Dan Barry. This is truly one of the most powerful books I've listened to in a long time.
At times, Sanders' delivery is dry, but at least he has the voice of a skilled documentarian. I never stopped feeling outrage, sadness, heartbreak, joy.
Very much worth the time, very much worth the credit.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Smoker
- 09-01-16
A good book
A good listen in my opinion, it jumps back and forth a bit which may get annoying but they managed t do it in a way that fits with each character. Other then that its a good book
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- J
- 06-28-16
Great story
If you could sum up The Boys in the Bunkhouse in three words, what would they be?
Difficult to believe things like this still happen. Great story about a sad situation. The Author has a real talent for describing the surroundings and the people. Very easy to visualize what was happening.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
As you get to know the people in the story it makes a real impact as you hear the difficult lives they were forced to live.
Any additional comments?
Very glad I listened to this book. Will likely listen again at a later date.
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1 person found this helpful
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- oscar donahue
- 08-16-16
awesome
loved the book! very inspiring and emotional
it is a great book and I would recommend it
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- William
- 10-08-17
Amazing Story
Hard to believe in my lifetime this true story of a group of mentally challenged men could live this sadly restricted life. Very well written and detailed by the author.
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