![]() Boom boom.” But the revolt quickly lurches beyond his control. They have all the jobs.” He wraps up each video with a call to arms: “Resist much, obey little. Mark ignites a revolution when he records a series of videos demanding boomers get out of the way. The story revolves around three characters: millennial Mark Brumfeld, whose journalism dreams fell apart along with much of the field his former girlfriend Cassie Black, who doesn’t notice that she’s cashing in with the sort of “new media job” that destroyed Mark’s aspirations and, Mark’s mother, Julia, whom Mark thinks of as a stay-at-home mom, unaware she ever had another life and dreams. What’s heavy can’t be measured by a scale it’s the weight of life. And when he’s a professor, a security officer asks to see his ID as he stands in his own office, a picture of him and his mother on his desk. We all watched cops shame our mamas, aunties, and grandmamas.” Security officers ask for his ID in his own college room. “We all had cops rough us up, chase us, pull guns on us, call us out of our names. And always in the air are race and racism. He tumbles into a gambling addiction to match hers. She tries to keep him out of trouble and subjects him to her sex life. She assigns him daily writing assignments, buys him encyclopedias “to protect my insides from white folks” and bounces checks. She beats him and heaps him with affection. The book is composed as a letter to Laymon’s ambitious, proud mother, a professor at Jackson State University in Mississippi. ![]() But it’s also an apt description of his life’s landscape, where racism is a molecule, a toxin, inhaled with every breath. The title may refer to Laymon’s weight, which topped 300 pounds before a period of self-destructive anorexia. For drama, it’s too rhythmic, but it’s about perfect for what often feels like poetry - by turns, funny, warm and painful. Kiese Laymon doesn’t so much read his memoir, “Heavy,” as recite it, like an incantation. “Heavy” by Kiese Laymon, narrated by the author, Simon & Schuster, 6:17 You know that our Reacher and the Canadians have a date somewhere before hour 12 Brick and Lee make it an exciting journey. The real draw, though, is the counterplot about a hapless Canadian couple checked into one very strange motel owned by a guy named Mark Reacher. Roots research seems an unpromising premise, but it’s a nagging puzzle that reveals something a wee bit wrong with dad’s story. Gang of Thugs encounter, he actually flounders momentarily in a fight! But the real surprise is that Reacher spends most of his time schlepping from government office to government office, trying to figure out where his father grew up in the small city of Laconia, N.H. For example, listeners wait two hours into the story before Reacher needs to hit someone - or, actually, squeeze a punk’s fist into jellied pulp. Support for AudioFile’s Behind the Mic Podcast comes from Blackstone Publishing, publisher of bestselling and award-winning books and audiobooks by fantastic writers and narrators.Although “Past Tense” covers much familiar territory for Reacher fans - one-against-many brawls, damsels in distress, pressing one’s pants under the hotel mattress - prepare for a few twists. To listen to the whole archive of Behind the Mic with AudioFile Magazine, subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or wherever else you find your favorite podcasts. Brick ratchets up the tension in an audiobook full of action. Brick’s voicing of Reacher brings listeners right into Jack’s thoughts as he makes his way to the West Coast and gets distracted on the Arizona-Mexico border by an ex-Army woman looking to rescue her brother. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss this latest that will appeal to the authors’ many fans. Scott Brick returns to perform the justice-seeking, iron-man Jack Reacher from Lee and Andrew Child’s Better Off Dead. We keep our daily episodes short and sweet, with audiobook clips to give you a sample of our featured listens. Every Monday through Friday, AudioFile’s editors recommend the best in audiobook listening.
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