Dodgers

A Novel

By: Bill Beverly

Narrated by: JD Jackson

Dodgers is a dark, unforgettable coming-of-age journey that recalls the very best of Richard Price, Denis Johnson, and J.D. Salinger.

It is the story of a young LA gang member named East, who is sent by his uncle along with some other teenage boys—including East's hothead younger brother—to kill a key witness hiding out in Wisconsin. The journey takes East out of a city he's never left and into an America that is entirely alien to him, ultimately forcing him to grapple with his place in the world and decide what kind of man he wants to become.

Written in stark and unforgettable prose and featuring an array of surprising and memorable characters rendered with empathy and wit, Dodgers heralds the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction.

Winner of the LA TIMES Book Prize of 2017 for Best Mystery/Thriller
Winner of the CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger 2016 for Best Crime Novel of the Year
Winner of the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger 2016 for Best Debut Crime Novel
Winner of the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award
Finalist for the PEN/Heminghway Award 2017 for Debut Fiction
Longlisted for Andrew Carnegie Medal 2017 for Excellence in Fiction
Nominated for the Edgar Award 2017 for Best First Novel

Great narration, story was ok

This story was decent but it didn't move me in an way. You know how a great story will make you think and reflect and it will stay with you after you finish? None of that happened for me with this one. The narrator was excellent.

Excellent coming of age story

It’s not often I’ll read or listen to a story about gangs, but this coming of age story of a young man named East had my attention from the start. Excellent writing and very good narration make this a good one to pick up on either audio or print.

Dodgers leave L.A!! What's the world coming to?

A “road trip” novel worth reading.

Like any classic road trip, this is a voyage of discovery, but one that follows a different route than normally taken in this genre. It’s not about a white youth heading west, which has been the classic narrative in most American road trip stories since Jack Kerouac – hell, since Frederick Jackson Turner.

Instead, it’s a road trip story for a modern, urban, American reality: a black youth heading East (the youth happens to be named East; the hero as the homonym). East heading east, fleeing from the past instead of journeying into the future, disappearing into the hinterland instead of arriving wide-eyed and innocent at the Pacific coast. Encountering personal limitation and responsibilities instead of liberation and possibilities.

Some critics have compared East with Holden Caulfield, narrator of The Catcher in the Rye. Others with Raskalnikov in Crime and Punishment. Perhaps a better comparison would be to Huckleberry Finn. (East’s uncle, by the way, is named Fin. This cannot be by accident. Beverly's symbolism is very purposeful, if not always subtle). In many ways this novel is a photo negative of that original American road story, with East = Huck (and Michael Wilson + Walter + Perry = Jim?).

But I kept referring back to “Easy Rider”, the cult-classic Peter Fonda/Dennis Hopper film. (East's nickname is Easy....) Here we have the same aimless meandering toward the same inevitable conclusion. The same admonitions: “America is burning” says the final image in the movie. “America is strung out”, says the book. Everybody is addicted to something: heroin, money, guns, paintball, donuts.

In both the movie and the novel, we are left with a future that looks very bleak, a future that seems stacked against us. Stacked against a black youth from the inner city, to be sure. But maybe stacked against us all. Can our GPS calculate an escape from mortality?

A very worthwhile novel with a good story and a serious purpose. A novel as metaphor for the State of the Nation. You ain't in the conversation if you haven't read it. Narration competent but not memorable.

narration hard to parse

Would you be willing to try another one of J. D. Jackson’s performances?

The narrator emphasizes words and syllables seemingly without regard for their meaning, e.g. "rocking HORSE," "LOG cabin," "curved window GLASS." Sometimes the odd diction choices make the prose hard to understand.

Wow, what a book!

I didn't know what to expect but I loved this book. Deep and exciting story. Awesome use of words and imagery. The audible performance really pulled me in. I was sad when it ended but totally satisfied.