Slumberland

A Novel

By: Paul Beatty

Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi

Critical darling Paul Beatty's highly original, widely praised novel of race, identity, and underground music.

After creating the perfect beat, DJ Darky goes in search of Charles Stone, a little know avant-garde jazzman, to play over his sonic masterpiece. His quest brings him to a recently unified Berlin, where he stumbles through the city's dreamy streets ruminating about race, sex, love, Teutonic gods, the prevent defense, and Wynton Marsalis in search of his artistic - and spiritual - other.

Ferocious, bombastic, and laugh-out-loud funny, Slumberland is vintage Paul Beatty and belongs on the shelf next to Jonathan Lethem, Colson Whitehead, and Junot Diaz.

©2008 Paul Beatty (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

For audiophiliacs and xenos

It's often indescribable where and how Paul Beatty chooses to take you some place. You just have to go and look back from the other side. This is a raw and ragged journey through sound, music, identity, gifts, and acceptance.

Love Music? Humor? You’ll love Slumberland

I’m a big fan of Paul Beatty; his witty, bouncy narratives, teasing into strange parallel existences in which everyone possesses better than average intelligence, articulates ideas with brio, swoons for political philosophy, and easily master every task make for sweet reading, or listening. Slumberland makes music the central tool for change. I even looked up a song glowingly described in the novel a so as to experience the same wonder as the characters.

Onayemi’s narration is fantastic – I’ve heard him do three of Beatty’s books – but suffers one flaw: he mispronounces words from time to time. This is the fault of the editor/producer, and wouldn’t bother some, but it scrapes on my ears a bit.

Gen Xr's Delight

Beatty is your lightning quick guide to a world you may not have known but whos language and references youll delight in. The naration by Prentice is flawless. I cant imagine anyone else bringing the work to life better. Five Stars -☆☆☆☆☆

Laugh out loud funny!

Another great piece of writing. Makes me wish there was a soundtrack so I can hear that "chicken song!"

No plot

No plot. No point. A waste of my time that I completed for book club discussion.