An evocative and wildly absorbing novel about the Winters, a family living in New York City’s famed Dakota apartment building in the year leading up to John Lennon’s assassination.
It’s the fall of 1979 in New York City when twenty-three-year-old Anton Winter, back from the Peace Corps and on the mend from a nasty bout of malaria, returns to his childhood home in the Dakota. Anton’s father, the famous late-night host Buddy Winter, is there to greet him, himself recovering from a breakdown. Before long, Anton is swept up in an effort to reignite Buddy’s stalled career, a mission that takes him from the gritty streets of New York, to the slopes of the Lake Placid Olympics, to the Hollywood Hills, to the blue waters of the Bermuda Triangle, and brings him into close quarters with the likes of Johnny Carson, Ted and Joan Kennedy, and a seagoing John Lennon.
But the more Anton finds himself enmeshed in his father’s professional and spiritual reinvention, the more he questions his own path, and fissures in the Winter family begin to threaten their close bond. By turns hilarious and poignant, The Dakota Winters is a family saga, a riveting social novel, and a tale of a critical moment in the history of New York City and the country at large.
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“Narrator Jim Meskimen impersonates a number of late ’70s-early ’80s celebrities as he recounts this story of the Winters, a family living in the Dakota, the New York apartment building where John Lennon famously lived—and died…[and] he keeps us entertained even as we anticipate the inevitable climax.”
— AudioFile
“Deft, funny, touching, and sharply observed.”
— Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize–winning author“Punctuated by clever dialogue and crisp social critiques, Barbash’s incisive, funny, and poignant portrait of talented people and a city in flux illuminates the risks of celebrity and the struggle to become one’s true self.”
— Booklist (starred review)“Barbash seamlessly mixes real-life celebrities into his fictitious narrative…Packed with diverting anecdotes and a beguiling cast, making for an immensely entertaining novel.”
— Publishers Weekly“A beautiful, evocative novel of family devotion, celebrity, downfall, and survival, framed by the political and cultural upheavals of America on the cusp of a new decade. Irresistibly tender.”
— Library Journal“Pleasurably endearing for anybody with a soft spot for pop culture, Annie Hall–era Manhattan, and twenty-somethingdom at its most freewheeling.”
— Kirkus ReviewsBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Tom Barbash is the author of the award-winning novel The Last Good Chance and the nonfiction book On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, & 9/11: A Story of Loss & Renewal, which was a New York Times bestseller. He currently teaches in the MFA program at California College of the Arts. He grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and now lives in Marin County.
Jim Meskimen is a stage, film, and television actor who has appeared in many well-known movies and television shows. He acted in Apollo 13 and Frost/Nixon for director Ron Howard, both of which were nominated for Best Picture Oscars. His television appearances include The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Friends, Lie to Me, Criminal Minds, and Parks and Recreation. He is also a painter, award-winning audiobook narrator, and audiobook director for Galaxy Audio.