The Petting Zoo
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Scott Brick
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By:
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Jim Carroll
About this listen
When poet, musician, and diarist Jim Carroll died in September 2009, he was putting the finishing touches on a potent work of fiction. The Petting Zoo tells the story of Billy Wolfram, an enigmatic 38-year-old artist who has become a hot star in the late 1980s New York art scene. As the novel opens, Billy, after viewing a show of Velazquez paintings, is so humbled and awed by their spiritual power that he suffers an emotional breakdown and withdraws to his Chelsea loft. In seclusion, Billy searches for the divine spark in his own work and life.
Carroll's novel moves back and forth in time to present emblematic moments from Billy's life (his Irish Catholic upbringing, his teenage escapades, his evolution as an artist and meteoric rise to fame) and sharply etched portraits of the characters who mattered most to him, including his childhood friend Denny MacAbee, now a famous rock musician; his mentor, the unforgettable art dealer Max Bernbaum; and one extraordinary black bird. Marked by Carroll's sharp wit, hallucinatory imagery, and street-smart style, The Petting Zoo is a frank, haunting examination of one artist's personal and professional struggles.
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Welcome to Newford: to the music clubs, the waterfront, and the alleyways where ancient myths and magic spill into the modern world. Gemmins live in abandoned cars and skells traverse the tunnels below, while mermaids swim in the gray harbor waters and fill the cold night with their song. Come meet Jilly, painting wonders in the rough city streets; and Geordie, playing fiddle while he dreams of a ghost; and the Angel of Grasso Street gathering the fey and the wild and the poor and the lost.
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Too Much Urban Fantasy Wears Thin
- By Jefferson on 06-15-13
By: Charles de Lint
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Bright Lights, Big City
- By: Jay McInerney
- Narrated by: Daniel Passer
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The tragicomedy of a young man in New York City, a writer, never named, who works as a fact-checker for a prestigious magazine. He struggles with the reality of his mother's death, alienation, and the seductive pull of drugs and a vibrant nightlife.
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Curiously, mundanely real
- By Amber on 01-07-12
By: Jay McInerney
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The Keep
- The Adversary Cycle, Book 1
- By: F. Paul Wilson
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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"Something is murdering my men." Thus reads the message received from a Nazi commander stationed in a small castle high in the remote Transylvanian Alps. Invisible and silent, the enemy selects one victim per night, leaving the bloodless and mutilated corpses behind to terrify its future victims. When an elite SS extermination squad is dispatched to solve the problem, the men find something that's both powerful and terrifying. Panicked, the Nazis bring in a local expert on folklore - who just happens to be Jewish - to shed some light on the mysterious happenings.
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At long last, The classic horror novel on Audible
- By Shieldslinger on 07-22-20
By: F. Paul Wilson
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The Shroud Conspiracy
- A Novel
- By: John Heubusch
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout his career, forensic anthropologist and outspoken atheist Dr. Jon Bondurant has investigated many religious artifacts said to be real, but he knows better. So when he is invited by the Vatican to examine the Shroud of Turin, said to be the burial cloth that covered the body of Christ, he is delighted for the opportunity to prove once and for all that the shroud is a fake.
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Jurassic Park meets the deVince Code
- By LRC on 04-21-17
By: John Heubusch
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The Voice of the Night with Short Story, "Silence"
- By: Dean Koontz
- Narrated by: Pavi Proczko, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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No one could understand why Colin and Roy were best friends. Colin was so shy; Roy was so popular. Colin was fascinated by Roy - and Roy was fascinated by death. Then one day, Roy asked his timid friend: “You ever killed anything?” From that moment on, the two were bound together in a game too terrifying to imagine - and too irresistible to stop.
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can not believe dean koontz wrote this book
- By Anonymous User on 10-05-21
By: Dean Koontz
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Amsterdam
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of Atonement and Enduring Love, Ian McEwan is known as one of contemporary fiction’s most acclaimed writers. This Booker Prize-winning novel by McEwan finds two men connecting at the funeral of their ex-lover. Distressed by how she was slowly destroyed by an illness, the two make a pact to save each other from enduring such a fate.
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Make something, and die.
- By Darwin8u on 02-07-17
By: Ian McEwan
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Privileged Information
- Alan Gregory, Book 1
- By: Stephen White
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Alan Gregory is a clinical psychologist with a thriving practice in Boulder, Colorado. His life begins to unravel when one of his female patients is found in an apparent suicide and the local paper begins printing accusations from an unnamed source of sexual impropriety between the woman and Dr. Gregory. He launches a psychological and personal quest for the truth that rapidly intensifies when more of his patients die untimely deaths, and Gregory suspects not only that the deaths are related but that another one of his patients may be somehow involved. Lacking facts but roused by suspicion and troubled by seemingly random acts of terror around him, Gregory starts to fear for the safety of the people he loves. The question of the inviolability of confidential disclosures made to Gregory by his patients - privileged information - becomes crucial as the psychologist pursues an unsettling romance with Lauren Crowder, a lovely deputy district attorney investigating one of the deaths. Bound to silence, Gregory follows the psychological tracks of someone he fears may be a cunning and disturbed killer, while turning to his enigmatic but supportive partner, Diane Estevez, for counsel, and to his tart-tongued female urologist neighbor for support. The sinister, surprising drama unfolds against Boulder's Rocky Mountain backdrop, in the arresting natural beauty of Aspen, and in the midst of a baroque Halloween costume party in downtown Boulder. Finally, in a lonely mountain lodge enshrouded in menace, the story comes to its breathtaking climax.
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Four and a half stars, actually....
- By karen on 10-11-13
By: Stephen White
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10:04
- By: Ben Lerner
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unexpected literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child, despite his dating a rising star in the visual arts. In a New York of increasingly frequent super storms and political unrest, he must reckon with his biological mortality, the possibility of a literary afterlife, and the prospect of (unconventional) fatherhood in a city that might soon be under water.
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A novel worth reading
- By Bradley Paul Valentine on 01-29-15
By: Ben Lerner
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Full Circle
- By: Michael Thomas Ford
- Narrated by: Blake Somerset
- Length: 17 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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History professor Ned Brummel is living happily with his partner of 12 years in small-town Maine when he receives a phone call from his estranged friend - Jack - telling him that another friend - Andy - is very ill and possibly near death. As Ned boards a plane to Chicago on his way to his friend's bedside, he embarks on another journey into memory, examining the major events and small moments that have shaped his world and his relationships with these two very different, very important men.
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To Every Season...
- By Donald on 10-01-13
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Fury
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Salman Rushdie
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The world renowned author of The Satanic Verses and The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman Rushdie is a Whitbread Award winner and recipient of the Booker Prize. His first truly American novel, Fury is a metaphorically rich black comedy that reflects the pressure-cooker of modern life. Malik Solanka, irascible doll-maker and retired historian of ideas, suffers the pain of wanting without knowing exactly what it is he wants.
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surprisingly good
- By David on 11-21-07
By: Salman Rushdie
What listeners say about The Petting Zoo
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- Bradley Paul Valentine
- 12-12-14
Deserves to be read
Any additional comments?
First things first. Scott Brick does his usual wonderful job reading. He even sounds a little like the real Jim Carroll, which is a double edge sword. It’s good hearing the words as Jim might have said them, but I find myself too often comparing Billy, the lead character, to Jim Carroll. I sort of imagine a lot of this novel is a thinly veiled autobiography and I think that’s a little unfair of me because it’s a novel. I just can’t help it particularly with the voice so like Jim’s.
Apparently Jim Carroll had a cardiac event at his desk while writing this beast and died. I call it a beast because the other reviewer is correct that it is quite fat and begs for a good shaving that I think it might have gotten had Jim Carroll lived long enough to complete it.
On the other hand, it has the feel of a novel that he never would have finished, and that’s kind of the problem. There is a linear thread through the novel, but the digressions are so far afield and, frankly, irrelevant (at least for me) that it does get to be a bit of a bear.
But SOOOO worth it. This novel may not be an autobiography, but it stands as a great rumination about the creative process and its impact on artists’ life that I think any dedicated artist can relate. Those are the parts I really appreciated. And I didn’t mind some of the digressions about Billy’s youth that actually felt more like their own novellas because they just kind of went on and on sometimes. In particular as Billy wrestles with his sanity there is a raven from Noah’s arc and quite frankly that is the crucible of this novel. I’m not religious. I’m certainly not Catholic. I don’t get it. Catholic guilt as a concept is an old punchline to a joke I’m tired of hearing. I don’t mean that as a judgement against Catholics or the religion. Just that I’m not interested and the whole Scorsese New York kid being really impressed with crucified Jesus symbolism....I mean, you know? haha. The symbolism of the petting zoo itself....I guess the more symbolic aspects of the work left me a little cold and reminded me of stuff I tried to write in high school. Magical talking animals while on a phantasmagoric journeys in gritty settings. That’s not a huge portion of the story. I’m just saying. It felt like the kind of thing a lot of novices try when they’re just learning to write, like when they’re exorcising their most obvious and least interesting ideas.
i’m not even sure Carroll meant that to be a big part of the novel or if the editors after his death sort of stuck it in there. It’s a shame that it takes up so much space because the real aspect that makes this novel special is its portrayal of an artists career and personal identity crisis (that may not be the best way of saying it but it’s close enough). The novel is strongest when keeping to the gist of that subject.
The forward of the novel says a lot of bits of this novel over the years while writing (again it has the feel of something Carroll got lost down the rabbit hole chasing, no pun) he’d read at his public appearances. It’s pretty easy to spot which sections those are because they have the feel of parts that could and should have been edited out of the novel and released as separate misc materials. Or at least treated less preciously. Because there is a GREAT novel in here that isn’t quite realized. But it’s in there and worth digging into and finding.
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- Jud B Sims
- 12-23-23
The depth of Carroll’s writing is tremendous!
Written in his traditional gritty style, Carroll ups his writing game to a level few achieve. A remarkable work - I only wish he’d produced more.
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- Amy
- 04-04-12
Needs an editor!
Well, it starts out interesting enough, but gradually loses steam until it becomes so sagged down… I made it about nine hours through (more than halfway) before giving up. I think the narrator is very good, but the book just is wayyy too slow-paced and rambling, taking forever to make any point while we take a lazy tour through the muddy philosophies and slightly tormented mind of a New York artist. It is often repetitive, stating the same exact thing more than once. I liked Basketball Diaries and Jim Carroll was a talented person, the concept of this book has potential, but needs a good editor to pare down to about half the length.
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