The Town of Babylon
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Timothy Andrés Pabon
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By:
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Alejandro Varela
About this listen
One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2022 - BuzzFeed, Lit Hub, Electric Literature, LGBTQ Reads, Latinx in Publishing
"A gay Latinx man reckons with his past when he returns home for his 20th high school class reunion in Varela’s dazzling debut...an incandescent bildungsroman" (Publisher's Weekly, starred review)
"Varela’s debut novel shimmers with tension, navigating the personal and political with practiced ease. Treading the waters of adolescence and adulthood, The Town of Babylon navigates the complexities of home, queerness, and messy histories with measure and empathy. Weaving together histories of immigration, economic unease, and the health complications of racism in America, Varela troubles ideas of community and shared experience amidst a polarizing landscape." (Kaitlynn Cassady, Seminary Co-op Bookstores)
"[An] intense, astute meditation on race, family, class, love, and friendship. Varela's wry humor is the icing on the cake of this brilliant novel." (Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction)
"An incisive taxonomy of the American suburb, looking beyond the white picket fence to tell a different story - what it is to be queer, the child of immigrants, and a person of color in this country." (Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind, finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction)
A debut novel about domestic malaise and suburban decline, following Andrés, a gay Latinx professor, returning to his hometown for a 20-year high school reunion.
When his father falls ill, Andrés, a professor of public health, returns to his suburban hometown to tend to his father's recovery. Reevaluating his rocky marriage in the wake of his husband’s infidelity and with little else to do, he decides to attend his 20-year high school reunion, where he runs into the long-lost characters of his youth.
Jeremy, his first love, is now married with two children after having been incarcerated and recovering from addiction. Paul, who Andrés has long suspected of having killed a man in a homophobic attack, is now an Evangelical minister and father of five. And Simone, Andrés's best friend, is in a psychiatric institution following a diagnosis of schizophrenia. During this short stay, Andrés confronts these relationships, the death of his brother, and the many sacrifices his parents made to offer him a better life.
A novel about the essential nature of community in maintaining one’s own health, The Town of Babylon is an intimate portrait of queer, racial, and class identity, a call to reevaluate the ties of societal bonds and the systems in which they are forged.
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Max doesn't remember his mother, who was murdered by burglars before they emigrated from Beirut to New Jersey. He lives with his father, Rasheed, who is enamored of his concept of American culture - baseball and barbeques - and tries to shed his Lebanese heritage completely.
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Excellent
- By Cheyenne on 06-13-15
By: Karim Dimechkie
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Breaking Night
- A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard
- By: Liz Murray
- Narrated by: Liz Murray
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Liz Murray was born to loving but drug-addicted parents in the Bronx. In school she was taunted for her dirty clothing and lice-infested hair, eventually skipping so many classes that she was put into a girls' home. At age 15, Liz found herself on the streets when her family finally unraveled. She learned to scrape by, foraging for food and riding subways all night to have a warm place to sleep. Then, when Liz's mother died of AIDS, she decided to take control of her own destiny.
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unbelievably inspiring
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-12
By: Liz Murray
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Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin
- A Memoir
- By: Nicole Hardy
- Narrated by: Nicole Hardy
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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When Nicole Hardy’s eye-opening "Modern Love" column appeared in the New York Times, the response from readers was overwhelming. Hardy’s essay, which exposed the conflict between being true to herself as a woman and remaining true to her Mormon faith, struck a chord with women coast-to-coast. Now in her funny, intimate, and thoughtful memoir, Nicole Hardy explores how she came, at the age of 35, to a crossroads regarding her faith and her identity.
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This Book Spoke to Me
- By Allison on 04-08-14
By: Nicole Hardy
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The Other Mother
- By: Rachel Harper
- Narrated by: January LaVoy, William DeMeritt
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Jenry Castillo is a musical prodigy, raised by a single mother in Miami, who arrives at Brown University on a scholarship—but also to learn more about his late father, Jasper Patterson, a famous ballet dancer who died tragically when Jenry was two. On his search, he meets his estranged grandfather, Winston Patterson, a legendary professor of African American history and a fixture at the Ivy League school, who explodes his world with one question: Why is Jenry so focused on Jasper, when it was Winston’s daughter, Juliet, who was Jenry’s mother’s lover?
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Very good.
- By Roland Harper on 05-22-22
By: Rachel Harper
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The Wangs vs. the World
- By: Jade Chang
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Charles Wang is mad at America. A brash, lovable immigrant businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, he's just been ruined by the financial crisis. Now all Charles wants is to get his kids safely stowed away so that he can go to China and attempt to reclaim his family's ancestral lands - and his pride. Outrageously funny and full of charm, The Wangs vs. the World is an entirely fresh look at what it means to belong in America - and how going from glorious riches to (still name-brand) rags brings one family together in a way money never could.
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Spectacular
- By Barbara on 10-11-16
By: Jade Chang
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Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
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Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
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The Rest of Her Life
- By: Laura Moriarty
- Narrated by: Julia Gibson
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Leigh is the mother of high-achieving, popular high school senior Kara. Their relationship is already strained for reasons Leigh does not fully understand when, in a moment of carelessness, Kara makes a mistake that ends in tragedy, the effects of which not only divide Leigh's family, but polarize the entire community.
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Obnoxious musical interludes ruin the story
- By Joan on 12-25-11
By: Laura Moriarty
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The Opposite of Loneliness
- Essays and Stories
- By: Marina Keegan
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Marina Keegan's star was on the rise when she graduated magna cum laude from Yale in May 2012. She had a play that was to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at the New Yorker. Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash. Even though she was just 22 when she died, Marina left behind a rich, expansive trove of prose that, like her title essay, captures the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of her generation.
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Probably buy the book too.
- By Soupergirl on 09-14-15
By: Marina Keegan
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Everybody's Son
- A Novel
- By: Thrity Umrigar
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
During a terrible heat wave in 1991 - the worst in a decade - 10-year-old Anton has been locked in an apartment in the projects, alone, for seven days, without air conditioning or a fan. With no electricity, the refrigerator and lights do not work. Hot, hungry, and desperate, Anton shatters a window and climbs out. Cutting his leg on the broken glass, he is covered in blood when the police find him. Juanita, his mother, is discovered in a crack house less than three blocks away, nearly unconscious and half-naked.
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Engaging and insightful
- By Amazon Customer on 07-12-17
By: Thrity Umrigar
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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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Performance
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Story
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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The Boy Kings of Texas
- A Memoir
- By: Domingo Martinez
- Narrated by: Emilio Delgado
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A lyrical and authentic book that recounts the story of a border-town family in Brownsville, Texas in the 1980s, as each member of the family desperately tries to assimilate and escape life on the border to become "real" Americans, even at the expense of their shared family history. This is really un-mined territory in the memoir genre that gives in-depth insight into a previously unexplored corner of America.
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It was Okay
- By DebKoo on 05-17-13
By: Domingo Martinez
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In the Country We Love
- My Family Divided
- By: Diane Guerrero, Michelle Burford
- Narrated by: Diane Guerrero
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Diane Guerrero, the television actress from the megahit Orange Is the New Black and Jane the Virgin, was just 14 years old on the day her parents were detained and deported while she was at school. Born in the US, Guerrero was able to remain in the country and continue her education, depending on the kindness of family friends who took her in and helped her build a life and a successful acting career for herself, without the support system of her family.
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Moves very slowly
- By Laura S. on 07-23-16
By: Diane Guerrero, and others
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Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See
- By: Juliann Garey
- Narrated by: Dan Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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In her tour-de-force first novel, Juliann Garey takes us inside the restless mind, ravaged heart, and anguished soul of Greyson Todd, a successful Hollywood studio executive who leaves his wife and young daughter and for a decade travels the world giving free reign to the bipolar disorder he's been forced to keep hidden for almost 20 years.
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Psychosis or Syphilis?
- By Vira on 04-02-13
By: Juliann Garey
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when will we stop romanticizing pedophilia
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What listeners say about The Town of Babylon
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lorraine Bayard de Volo
- 07-02-24
Thoughtful and thought-provoking
Wonderful, complex treatment of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and class. I appreciated especially the inclusion of health issues as they interact with race, etc.—an under appreciated though very important component, a form of structural violence.
Very readable and engaging. Terrific characters, well developed.
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Performance
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- Laurie Larson
- 06-10-23
Great story and narration
The story kept me engaged. The characters were well developed and it almost read like an autobiography. I do agree with some of the reviews about the political aspect, but I felt it added to the characterization.
Also, more than I needed to know about his sex life, but it wasn’t offensive. Overall great story with characters that will stay with you.
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- W. Grofic
- 02-02-23
Nice story
Solid characters, great time. Like grosse point blank but entirely different. Great hang out book.
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1 person found this helpful
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Performance
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Story
- Rich
- 02-16-23
Real life
I have never listened to or read a more real life novel in my life. This was raw, filled with emotion and connections to every character that anyone can relate to or understand. This book will stay with me forever in my mind. A truly wonderful story.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Chris T.
- 11-09-23
Great Book
Detailed and so personally relatable. Very well written. Really sunk my teeth into this book
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- Roswell Encina
- 01-17-23
Outstanding!
I loved this book. It may not be for everyone but there’s a lot to relate to in this novel. It’s a commentary on race, class, and homophobia wrapped into
a sociological look at the suburbs. It goes beyond the white picket fences and culdesacs and tells it from an immigrant family’s perspective.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Gary R Baker
- 02-11-23
Did I really like this?
There were so many parts of this book that I thought were honest and genuine and captured the inner turmoil of this 30-something Gay Latinx protagonist. But other parts seemed like the author pontificating on certain topics he found interesting, and while I generally agreed with the opinions, they didn’t always seem relevant to the story. Also, the main character isn’t likable, which isn’t a big problem, but takes away some of emotional impact.
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8 people found this helpful
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- JaimeBZ
- 04-12-22
Loved this book!
I loved this book filled with inner dialogue. For fans of The Heart’s Invisible Furies. I thought the audio performance was spectacular.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Victoria
- 05-28-23
Captivating
I could not stop listening. Gut-wrenching at times. I highly recommend the book. Happy Pride!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anita
- 06-05-23
Great Performance
Parts of this felt very real, very vivid. At times I thought the writer lapsed into preaching (even though I agree with him much of the time).
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1 person found this helpful