The Parking Lot Attendant
A Novel
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The Parking Lot Attendant
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Narrated by:
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Bahni Turpin
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By:
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Nafkote Tamirat
About this listen
A mesmerizing, indelible coming-of-age audiobook about a girl in Boston's tightly-knit Ethiopian community who falls under the spell of a charismatic hustler out to change the world
A haunting story of fatherhood, national identity, and what it means to be an immigrant in America today, Nafkote Tamirat's The Parking Lot Attendant explores how who we love, the choices we make, and the places we’re from combine to make us who we are.
The story begins on an undisclosed island where the unnamed narrator and her father are the two newest and least-liked members of a commune that has taken up residence there. Though the commune was built on utopian principles, it quickly becomes clear that life here is not as harmonious as the founders intended. After immersing us in life on the island, our young heroine takes us back to Boston to recount the events that brought her here. Though she and her father belong to a wide Ethiopian network in the city, they mostly keep to themselves, which is how her father prefers it.
This detached existence only makes Ayale’s arrival on the scene more intoxicating. The unofficial king of Boston’s Ethiopian community, Ayale is a born hustler - when he turns his attention to the narrator, she feels seen for the first time. Ostensibly a parking lot attendant, Ayale soon proves to have other projects in the works, which the narrator becomes more and more entangled in to her father’s growing dismay. By the time the scope of Ayale’s schemes - and their repercussions - become apparent, our narrator has unwittingly become complicit in something much bigger and darker than she ever imagined.
©2018 Nafkote Tamirat (P)2018 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- By: Thrity Umrigar
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 109
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Story4 out of 5 stars 110
Best-selling author and PEN and Beyond Margins Award finalist Thrity Umrigar’s acclaimed novels “resonate with rich prose and vibrant depictions of India” ( Booklist). In The World We Found, Armaiti, Laleh, Kavita, and Nishta - once friends at the University of Bombay - reconnect 30 years later when Armaiti is diagnosed with cancer. Coming together, all four women are forced to reexamine their lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good story but performance not so much!
- By Alisha on 09-13-15
By: Thrity Umrigar
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The Heart's Invisible Furies
- A Novel
- By: John Boyne
- Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
- Length: 21 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7,056
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 6,416
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 6,385
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery - or at least that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding. A Must listen.
- By Keith G on 09-04-17
By: John Boyne
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Full Circle
- By: Michael Thomas Ford
- Narrated by: Blake Somerset
- Length: 17 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
History professor Ned Brummel is living happily with his partner of 12 years in small-town Maine when he receives a phone call from his estranged friend - Jack - telling him that another friend - Andy - is very ill and possibly near death. As Ned boards a plane to Chicago on his way to his friend's bedside, he embarks on another journey into memory, examining the major events and small moments that have shaped his world and his relationships with these two very different, very important men.
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5 out of 5 stars
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To Every Season...
- By Donald on 10-01-13
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Dreams from My Father
- A Story of Race and Inheritance
- By: Barack Obama
- Narrated by: Barack Obama
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 569
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 492
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Story5 out of 5 stars 488
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a Black African father and a White American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a Black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father - a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man - has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey - first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Powerful
- By Gene R. on 10-26-21
By: Barack Obama
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Everybody's Son
- A Novel
- By: Thrity Umrigar
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 410
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 366
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 369
During a terrible heat wave in 1991 - the worst in a decade - 10-year-old Anton has been locked in an apartment in the projects, alone, for seven days, without air conditioning or a fan. With no electricity, the refrigerator and lights do not work. Hot, hungry, and desperate, Anton shatters a window and climbs out. Cutting his leg on the broken glass, he is covered in blood when the police find him. Juanita, his mother, is discovered in a crack house less than three blocks away, nearly unconscious and half-naked.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Engaging and insightful
- By Amazon Customer on 07-12-17
By: Thrity Umrigar
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Baltimore Blues
- Tess Monaghan, Book 1
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Deborah Hazlett
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,502
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,202
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,194
Unemployed at 29, Tess Monaghan is willing to take any freelance job to pay the rent—including a bit of unorthodox snooping for her rowing buddy, Darryl "Rock" Paxton. In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz's death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer's notoriety—and his noontime trysts with Rock's fiancée—make the case front page news...and point to Rock as the likely murderer. But trying to prove her friend's innocence could prove costly to Tess.
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4 out of 5 stars
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I'm on #8 - This series is almost unique
- By connie on 02-19-12
By: Laura Lippman
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The Night Listener
- By: Armistead Maupin
- Narrated by: Armistead Maupin
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 416
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 130
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Story4 out of 5 stars 129
This unprecedented audio project is as thought-provoking as it is mesmeric. The Night Listener is a meditation on the power of voices and the faith we place in them, and an extraordinary audio experience from an American literary icon.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wheels within wheels
- By Naomi on 07-06-03
By: Armistead Maupin
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I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This
- A Memoir
- By: Nadja Spiegelman
- Narrated by: Nadja Spiegelman
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
For a long time, Nadja Spiegelman believed her mother was a fairy. More than her famous father, Maus creator Art Spiegelman, and even more than most mothers, hers - French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly - exerted a force over reality that was both dazzling and daunting. As Nadja's body changed and "began to whisper to the adults around me in a language I did not understand", their relationship grew tense.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Aweful
- By Haley Abreu on 07-05-17
By: Nadja Spiegelman
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The Wrong Sister
- By: T. E. Woods
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,467
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,260
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,252
From behind the wheel of her car, Tess Kincaid glimpses a woman walking down a Madison, Wisconsin, street. They've never met, but Tess sees the same features every time she looks in the mirror. Tess introduces herself and discovers that she and her doppelganger, Mimi, have more than appearance in common. They even share the same birthday. Mimi - confident and outgoing where Tess is understated and shy - is convinced they're twins, separated shortly after birth. When a body is discovered in a local marsh, Tess is entangled in a search for the truth....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Nothing like anything T E Woods has written B4!!!
- By shelley on 03-01-18
By: T. E. Woods
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The Bastard of Istanbul
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 450
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 308
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Story4 out of 5 stars 310
In her second novel written in English, Elif Shafak confronts her country's violent past in a vivid and colorful tale set in both Turkey and the United States. At its center is the "bastard" of the title, Asya, a 19-year-old woman who loves Johnny Cash and the French Existentialists, and the four sisters of the Kazanci family who all live together in an extended household in Istanbul.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A tender gift from far away
- By Barbara on 11-07-07
By: Elif Shafak
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Finding Fish
- A Memoir
- By: Antwone Q. Fisher
- Narrated by: Thomas Penny
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 91
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Story5 out of 5 stars 89
Baby Boy Fisher was raised in institutions from the moment of his birth in prison to a single mother. He ultimately came to live with a foster family, where he endured near-constant verbal and physical abuse. In his midteens he escaped and enlisted in the navy, where he became a man of the world, raised by the family he created for himself. Finding Fish shows how, out of this unlikely mix of deprivation and hope, an artist was born.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This book will not disappoint you.
- By Joseph on 10-16-16
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French Exit
- A Novel
- By: Patrick deWitt
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 345
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 301
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 300
Frances Price - tart widow, possessive mother, and Upper East Side force of nature - is in dire straits, beset by scandal and impending bankruptcy. Her adult son Malcolm is no help, mired in a permanent state of arrested development. And then there’s the Price’s aging cat, Small Frank, who Frances believes houses the spirit of her late husband, an infamously immoral litigator and world-class cad whose gruesome tabloid death rendered Frances and Malcolm social outcasts. Putting penury and pariahdom behind them, the family decides to cut their losses and head for the exit.
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5 out of 5 stars
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deWitt deLivers Eccentric Quirky Characters
- By Liberty on 09-23-18
By: Patrick deWitt
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One Amazing Thing
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Purva Bedi, Soneela Nankani, Neil Shah
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 129
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 103
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Story4 out of 5 stars 101
Winner of a Pushcart Prize for poetry and an American Book Award for her short stories, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores themes of women, immigration, and her vibrant Indian culture to great effect. Divakaruni expands on these ideas in One Amazing Thing, a project long in the making and full of electric prose.
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3 out of 5 stars
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An ok way to kill some time
- By R.Reader on 11-07-12
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Nearly Normal
- Surviving the Wilderness, My Family and Myself
- By: Cea Sunrise Person
- Narrated by: Cea Sunrise Person
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 149
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 125
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
In her best-selling memoir North of Normal, Cea wrote with grace about her unconventional childhood - her early years living in a tipi in Alberta with her pot-smoking, free-loving counterculture family. But her struggles do not end when she leaves her family at the age of 13 to become a model. Honest and daring, Nearly Normal reveals the many ways that Cea's unconventional childhood continues to reverberate through the years.
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2 out of 5 stars
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This one is just not for me
- By Pamela Plimpton on 03-15-19
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The Submission
- A Novel
- By: Amy Waldman
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 185
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 157
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Story4 out of 5 stars 157
Claire Harwell hasn't settled into grief; events haven't let her. Cool, eloquent, raising two fatherless children, Claire has emerged as the most visible of the 9/11 widows who became a potent political force in the aftermath of the catastrophe. She longs for her husband, but she has found her mission: she sits on a jury charged with selecting a fitting memorial for the victims of the attack.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Some books were meant to be read...
- By Barbara on 02-24-12
By: Amy Waldman
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The Canterbury Sisters
- By: Kim Wright
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4 out of 5 stars 60
Che Milan's life is falling apart. Not only has her longtime lover abruptly dumped her, but her eccentric, demanding mother has recently died. When an urn of ashes arrives along with a note reminding Che of a half-forgotten promise to take her mother to Canterbury, Che finds herself reluctantly undertaking a pilgrimage. Within days she joins a group of women who are walking the 60 miles from London to the shrine of Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The Canterbury Sisters
- By Melissa on 09-22-19
By: Kim Wright
What listeners say about The Parking Lot Attendant
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- ibillinsly@gmail
- 12-18-18
3.12 underwhelming stars
The Parking Lot Attendant takes quite awhile to get going, and it never really takes off. This novel is on the Tournament of Books Long List for 2019, and that and the description of the novel is what made me decide to try it. I can't see it beating out any of the other novels, though I've only read a few on The List. The narrator, Bahni Turpin, is fantastic as always.
Overall rating: 3.12 stars
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