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Sign up todayPanorama City
Narrator
Richard Powers
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Length
8 hours 1 minute
Language
English
With its blend of fool’s wisdom and deeply felt humanity, Panorama City is heir to Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead and Steve Martin’s The Jerk. From his deathbed*, twenty-eight-year-old Oppen Porter—an openhearted, bicycle-riding, binocular-toting, self-described “slow absorber”—unspools into a cassette recorder his tale of self-determination, from “village idiot” to “man of the world,” for the benefit of his unborn son. Told in an astonishingly charming and wise voice, Oppen’s account traces forty days and nights navigating the fast-food joints, storefront churches, and home-office psychologists of the San Fernando Valley. Ping-ponging between his watchful, sharp-tongued aunt and an outlaw philosopher with the face “of a newly hatched crocodile,” Oppen finds himself constantly in the sights of people who believe that their way is the only way for him. Oppen Porter is “an American original” (Stewart O’Nan) for whom finding one’s own way is both a delightful art and a painstaking science. Disarmingly funny and surreptitiously moving, Panorama City makes us see the world, and our place in it, with new eyes. *Not really
Antoine Wilson is the author of the novel The Interloper and a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is a contributing editor of A Public Space and lives and surfs in Los Angeles.
Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. His book, The Overstory, won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.
Reviews
“Antoine Wilson draws us in to the weird, wonderful world of Oppen Porter, whose advice and lessons are jarringly original, funny, and moving.”
“God bless Oppen Porter! His innocence and lack of pretense are our good fortune and our delight. Under his observation, our follies and schemes and manias go up in the brightest, funniest, heartrending flames. This is precisely (and artfully) because he does not judge them. Panorama City is charming and absurd, very funny and, best of all, humane through and through.”
“Wilson’s Panorama City is a candid and perceptive exploration of how families connect and how society’s most popular methods of advancement may not always be the most beneficial. Oppen is an excellent judge of character, and Wilson’s ability to sketch out such an ideal narrator should be commended. Readers who enjoy Mark Haddon and Greg Olear will appreciate Wilson’s authorial voice, which blends Oppen’s good-natured naïveté and humorous asides with incisive cynicism. A funny, heartfelt, and genuine novel.”
“Charming and oddball…Panorama City is about our struggle to remain open to one another in a world that categorizes and closes us off at every turn…A bracingly humane story whose narrator’s wisdom and forbearance make you see the world afresh.”
“Wilson’s latest quirky offering is written in perfect audiobook format. He gives us Oppen, a young man reminiscent of Forrest Gump, who records his life and its lessons as a dying message to his unborn son. Paul Michael Garcia displays his award-winning narrating skills by capturing both the humor and poignancy of this deceptively simple hero. With a straightforward delivery, Garcia conveys the wonder and confusion Oppen, a self-described ‘slow absorber,’ feels as he carries out his quest to become a ‘man of the world.’ Oppen’s innocence and naïveté provide many amusing situations while his innate morality and uncluttered vision provide a sometimes uncomfortably honest look at values considered ‘smart’ in today’s society. This quick, enjoyable listen brings credit to both author and narrator.”
“This is a book you will hold in your head all day long, a book you will look forward to when you get home from work, a book you will still be savoring as you drift into sleep. Panorama City is often very funny. It is filled with joy and wonder and a sort of goodness you had stopped believing might be even possible. Antoine Wilson’s sentences are like diamond necklaces, but his greatest treasure is his human heart.”
“Oppen Porter is an American original, an innocent who believes he’s bursting with wisdom. The funniest thing is that, despite himself, he actually is…Full of wonders and mysteries.”
“This funny and wise novel reminds one that the best fiction often treads the subtle line between tragedy and comedy. With ears keenly tuned to the music of language, and a limpid mind slyly hidden behind a persistent soliloquist, Antoine Wilson has written an intricate novel that makes us laugh and cry.”
“Wilson’s second novel is fresh and flawlessly crafted as well as charmingly genuine…Fram[es] a classic coming-of-age story in an unexpected way.”
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