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Sign up todayThe Freaks Came Out to Write
The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture
Length
16 hours 44 minutes
Language
English
Narrators
Johnny Heller & Jo Anna Perrin
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreYou either were there or you wanted to be. A defining New York City institution co-founded by Norman Mailer, The Village Voice was the first newspaper to cover hip-hop, the avant-garde art scene, and Off-Broadway with gravitas. It reported on the AIDS crisis with urgency and seriousness when other papers dismissed it as a gay disease. In 1979, the Voice’s Wayne Barrett uncovered Donald Trump as a corrupt con artist before anyone else was paying attention. It invented new forms of criticism and storytelling and revolutionized journalism, spawning hundreds of copycats. With more than 200 interviews, including with two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead, cultural critic Greg Tate, gossip columnist Michael Musto, feminist writers Vivian Gornick and Susan Brownmiller, post-punk band Blondie, sportscaster Bob Costas, and drummer Max Weinberg of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, former Voice writer Tricia Romano pays homage to the paper that saved NYC landmarks from destruction and exposed corrupt landlords and judges. This definitive oral history tells the story of journalism, New York City, and American culture—and the most famous alt-weekly of all time.
Tricia Romano began her eight- year career at the Village Voice as an intern. As a contributing writer she wrote features and award-winning cover stories about culture and music. Her reported column, Fly Life, gave a glimpse into the underbelly of New York nightlife. She has been a staff writer at the Seattle Times and served as the editor in chief of the Stranger, Seattle’s alternative newsweekly. A fellow at MacDowell, Ucross and Millay artist residencies, her work has been published in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, the Daily Beast, Men’s Journal, Elle, Alta Journal, and the Los Angeles Times, among others. She lives in Seattle, Washington. This is her first book.
Johnny Heller is an award-winning narrator and one of the most sought-after voiceover coaches in the nation. An ALA Odyssey Award winner, AudioFile Golden Voice, and a Grammy nominee, he has narrated over 1,000 titles in almost every genre. A multiple recipient of Booklist and Publishers Weekly Starred Reviews, Publishers Weekly Listen Up Awards, and AudioFile Magazine Best Voice of the Year recognitions, he is regularly nominated for Earphones and Audies and is a multi-award winner of both.
Jo Anna Perrin is an accomplished audiobook narrator and actor who has appeared in film and television as well as on stage in New York and Los Angeles. Independent of her acting and voiceover work, she is a published author and a professional photographer.
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