9780060839383
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A Changed Man audiobook

  • By: Francine Prose
  • Narrator: Eric Conger
  • Category: Fiction, Satire
  • Length: 14 hours 11 minutes
  • Publisher: HarperAudio
  • Publish date: March 01, 2005
  • Language: English
  • (1084 ratings)
(1084 ratings)
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A Changed Man Audiobook Summary

“Francine Prose has a knack for getting to the heart of human nature. . . . We are allowed to enter the moral dilemmas of fascinating characters whose emotional lives are strung out by the same human frailties, secrets and insecurities we all share.” USA Today

One spring afternoon, Vincent Nolan, a young neo-Nazi walks into the office of a human rights foundation headed by Meyer Maslow, a charismatic Holocaust survivor. Vincent announces that he wants to make a radical change. But what is Maslow to make of this rough-looking stranger with Waffen SS tattoos who says that his mission is to save guys like him from becoming guys like him?

As Vincent gradually turns into the sort of person who might actually be able to do that, he also begins to transform everyone around him, including Maslow himself. Masterfully plotted, darkly comic, A Changed Man poses essential questions about human nature, morality, and the capacity for change, illuminating the everyday transactions, both political and personal, in our lives.

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A Changed Man Audiobook Narrator

Eric Conger is the narrator of A Changed Man audiobook that was written by Francine Prose

Eric Conger’s stage credits include appearances Off-Broadway and at the Long Wharf Theater. He has appeared as a regular on Another World and Loving, and has translated the works of Feydeau.

About the Author(s) of A Changed Man

Francine Prose is the author of A Changed Man

A Changed Man Full Details

Narrator Eric Conger
Length 14 hours 11 minutes
Author Francine Prose
Category
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date March 01, 2005
ISBN 9780060839383

Subjects

The publisher of the A Changed Man is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is Fiction, Satire

Additional info

The publisher of the A Changed Man is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780060839383.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Sacha

April 18, 2007

I've read two other books by Francine Prose (Blue Angel and The Peaceable Kingdom). This was pretty different. Reminded me a lot of Nick Hornby's How to Be Good, but not as funny. The story is basically that an uninspired Neo-Nazi sees the light while on Ecstacy and decides to throw himself at the mercy of and in service to an Elie Wiesel-like character. It feels not nearly as dark as her other stories, in fact it isn't dark at all. I liked it in spite of that.

Christine

December 12, 2020

I think what I liked about this book was how funny and honest it was about human goodness. Mostly it seems we are guided by self interest and held from striving for good because of insecurity and complacency. Through the range of lenses, Prose shows us many viewpoints (the single mom, Holocaust survivor, the white supremacist, the high school kid), and in her telling, everyone is misguided. Some of the scenes are just hilarious—Vincent’s peanut allergy debacle paired with the Bulgarian baby reveal was my favorite. Although the scene at graduation is a bit cliched, the conflicting messages about whether people can change or whether it is simply life that changes leave the reader with much to consider. The novel unsettles simple narratives about goodness.

Stabitha

September 30, 2008

A Changed Man begins with an ex-white supremacist walking into a human rights organization’s office to offer his services: he wants to “help guys like me from becoming guys like me.” The subject matter allows Prose to flex her satire muscles, which by this point are quite developed. In this case, the focal point of her attack is a human rights organization. I don’t know how she’s going to one-up herself after this one. Ten years ago, in Hunters and Gatherers, she targeted goddess-worshipping new agey ladies. Five years ago, in Blue Angel, she chose a riskier subject: sexual harassment and p.c. language limitations on the college campus, likely to remain a touchy subject for years to come. And now she’s picked a human rights organization; can a cow get much more sacred?Prose allows four main characters to narrate: Vincent, the ex-neo-nazi, Meyer Maslow, the wealthy leader of the World Brotherhood Watch and a holocaust survivor, Bonnie, the organization’s (Jewish) fund-raiser who takes Vincent into her home, and Danny, Bonnie’s 16 year old son. The juxtaposition of Meyer and Vincent is excellent. The competitive, yet respectful, nature of their relationship is unveiled at their first meeting. Both men roll up their sleeves to reveal their tattoos: Meyer’s serial number given to him by Nazis and Vincent’s Waffen-SS bolts (Hitler’s elite guard’s symbol). Meyer’s written several inspirational books (which influenced Vincent’s departure from the white supremacist lifestyle, or so he claims), the most recent of which is lagging in sales. Meyer knows Vincent’s presence within the organization could bring much-needed funds to the World Brotherhood Watch, and guiltily thinks that it could also help his book sales. Meyer’s a charismatic leader who can get people to do whatever he wants. Danny thinks his mother’s been brainwashed by him: he’s actually convinced her to let the former neo-nazi live with them until they can find him an apartment. Bonnie is so obsessed with being a “good person” that she submits to Meyer’s demands. Soon, we discover that Vincent has a certain charm that Meyer hates to admit he envies. As Vincent sells his “changed man” story like a brand, the press, wealthy donors, and even Meyer’s wife eat it up. Meyer’s jealousy grows, followed by more guilt. One of my favorite Vincent-Meyer moments is when Meyer steals one of Vincent’s ideas to use in one of his trademark inspirational speeches. The two men form just one of the many interesting dyads in the book.As we’re getting into the characters, we’re treated to some biting satire. What I like so much about this book is that the characters are so interesting and real and their stories so engaging that you forget the primary purpose of the book is satire. I think it’s more fulfilling and less didactic than straight-up satires that don’t concentrate on character development or pace. I do want to share two examples though. The first one is when Vincent is giving a speech at a fund-raising dinner. When he tells the audience about how he was taught to “hate,” the crowd gasps: hate has become a four-letter word. Prose understands how ideology affects language. (My mom used to send me to my room if I used the word “hate”). Vincent goes on to tell a simple story that’s meant to symbolize his complicated conversion. He and his cousin had gone to a Korean man’s greenhouse, intending to hurt the man. Vincent remembers aloud that they referred to him as a “Korean mother…” and decides not to use the word in such company. He realizes that the audience is disappointed, so he says it: “Korean motherfucker.” The crowd loves it; it’s so transgressive and thrilling. The other example I’d like to mention is when Danny gets in trouble at school for a paper he wrote on Hitler. This harkens back to Blue Angel’s attack on the academic gutting of free speech. After talking with Vincent, Danny writes a paper that suggests Hitler’s suppressed homosexuality may have informed his evil. He is promptly booted from school. Just putting homosexuality and evil in the same sentence is grounds for hanging. I love that she manages to make her points within a solid story.From the very beginning, we know Vincent’s white power friends could find him at any moment. This point of tension propels the book and I ate it up like a bulimic at a buffet. I think I just puked all over the keyboard. I’ll wrap it by simply suggesting you read it.

Martha

December 17, 2008

Vincent Nolan leaves the Aryan Resistance Movement and seeks refuge (and a job) with the humanitarian organization World Brotherhood Watch. The rest of A Changed Man follows Vincent's growth and the people around him with mostly internal monologues. The characters' perceptions of each other and themselves play a huge role as these vastly different people try to understand each other. Francine Prose made these characters into incredibly believable human beings. It is especially impressive when you consider the wide range of personalities--30ish former neo-nazi, 70-year-old Holocaust survivor, 40ish single mother, 16-year-old high school student.A Changed Man presented flawed human beings from all kinds of backgrounds as they were thrown together in this sweet, funny, and engaging story. Fascinating characters in a fantastic book.

Emi

September 06, 2007

This book grew on me, at first I didn't really feel it but the plot was good and sucked me in, and I felt like it got better the more I read. Character development was key here, I felt like I really understood what was motivating everybody and the happy ending was unexpected, yet totally believable.

Cynthia

April 07, 2019

I always like to read reviews of books I've just finished and I noted the many thoughtful reviews of this book. Several pointed out that the main character, while conflicted, was never committed to a neo-nazi world view in the first place so his change of heart was facile and that the actual harm these people can do and have done was consequently trivialized. It's true that Vincent's cousin and his friends had never actually come to the level of violence one might expect but it's also true that the potential was always there and the hideously twisted and rage stoked world view they share was very clearly evinced during Raymond's interior monolog toward the end of the book. Violence and anger are volatile and dangerous especially when fanned into flame by rhetoric and mob behavior. Circumstances and setting make a difference to what actually happens. I also appreciated the humor in the book. It was genuinely and intentionally funny in a lot of places; something that could not apply if the subject had been a serious exposition of the ugliness and terror of real life thuggery as evinced by people with the world view of ARM.

Jason

December 13, 2018

Was very pleasantly surprised by this, especially after skimming some of the middling reviews here. It's a pretty chunky book for what adds up to be a handful of scenes between characters, but I didn't feel like anything was wasted. I really dug the low-level tension that creeps in from early on and stays there. Vincent, arguably the titular character, is a former neo-Nazi...but is he? Or, was he ever really a neo-Nazi? I don't think Prose ever gets fully cynical with the book (which I appreciate), but she really does toy with the idea that real, true change is maybe a bit more rare than people let on. All of the characters have interests and motives that run counter to the story they're selling, and throughout the story some move closer to that projected reality while others move away from it. I also really admire how well Prose nailed the male voice here, especially Bonnie's two children.

Barbara

May 03, 2022

I enjoyed this book, because it is a well-written insightful feel-good book about changing the consciousness of a young man who is a member of the Aryan Resistance Movement (ARM) at the beginning, and after interacting with a famous Holocaust Survivor who runs a nonprofit to save lives, and more specifically, with the administrative head of said nonprofit and her sons, changes his mind.Who doesn't want to believe this is possible? And this was a credible tale of how it could have happened to one person. Plus, the author has a droll sense of humor and irony about the egoistic pitfalls of the nonprofit world. Entertaining. More deep than shallow. Worth reading.

Sherry

July 20, 2022

Vincent Nolan is a neo-Nazi who decides to walk away from that life by entering the offices of the World Brotherhood Watch Foundation, an organization run by a Jewish man, Meyer Maslow, who survived the Holocaust and telling them that he would like to help them help other young men not take the same path he did. He goes to live with Bonnie (Maslow's assistant) and her two teenage boys. Told through the perspective of each of the characters, Prose gets inside everyone's head to see how each of them change in their thinking through their interactions with each other.

morgen

May 19, 2021

Vincent has decided to turn his back on his neo nazi friends by stealing their truck, their money and their drugs and allying himself with the charitable organization founded by Meyer Maslow whose escape from Nazis during WW II became his first best seller and led to his interest in peace, in helping those under any kind of attack. Meyer asks his dedicated assistant Bonnie to let Vincent stay with her and her teenaged sons. Everyone helps improve everyone else. Somehow it is touching, entertaining and funny.

Rachel

July 08, 2021

This book drew me in. There is a cynicism in the characters which I totally understand and enjoyed. No one is totally what they seem, from the skinhead who had has awakening to the Holocaust survivor who is big in fundraising and the NGO world. The final denouement definitely has a hokey factor but I found this book amusing and a page turner. This could be a very enjoyable vacation read in that it is quick, not mentally taxing and amusing at the same time.

Dave

June 20, 2017

Prose shares multiple points of view from a skinhead to a holacoust survivor to a single mom. The family is the emotional center of this novel about change. Prose humor soothes the edginess of the novel's topic. No one writes party scence like she does.

Amylynne

July 08, 2018

Really enjoyed this book. Low on plot but high on character. Switches point of view often but is easy to follow. Very realistic characters and a good premise.

Rachel

October 26, 2017

This book is really interesting, amusing and thought-provoking. I find it scary though that there are really people in the world like Raymond who actually believe those things.

Melanie

March 31, 2009

Everyone believes in something, be it God, alchemy, market forces, or mutability. Meyer Maslow, high-profile Holocaust survivor and founder of Brotherhood Watch (BW), believes in all of the above, and then some. As head of an organization that uses publicity and moral pressure to free political prisoners and dissidents, he is surrounded by acolytes who staff his offices and follow his central belief: "peace through change."The eponymous changed man, Vincent Nolan, leaves his van in the top tier of a parking garage, descends to the gritty heat of Manhattan, and rides the elevator (along with a dwarf - his description, not mine!) to the cool BW headquarters. The women who serve as gatekeepers for Meyer are wary, but they do allow him access.Vincent tells Meyer his story, mixing truth with wary selectivity. He has, indeed, escaped from the ranks of the American Rights Movement (ARM), a neo-Nazi organization, after an ecstasy-fueled flash of insight in the middle of a rave. He also has stolen his neo-Nazi cousin's van, money, and stash of drugs, details he omits, knowing that they would block his plan to offer himself as a symbol of the type of change dear to Meyer's heart and soul.Also omitted is the shaky basis of his altered philosophy and the struggle to change his inner vocabulary of borrowed neo-Nazi lingo. He is determined. (" "Attitude is everything,' he reminded himself as he navigated the hot and multicultural streets of Manhattan - the very essence of the evil against which the Aryans fight.") His decisions are fortified by his totem books: Crime and Punishment, and The Way of the Warrior.At this stage, Vincent is a chameleon in the guise of a changed man, trying on the identity of redemption as he once did with ARM (although without a drug hit). He has drifted from one identity to another, from his mother's New Age airiness to the ARM, on currents of disappointment and neediness, taking on coloration as needed.Bonnie Kalen, Meyer's fundraising assistant, is a witness to the moment that bonds the two men. Both have tattoos, coloration, as it were - Vincent's death's head and SS thunderbolts vs. Meyer's tattooed numbers. Meyer believes in the alchemy that can transform evil into good, and sees potential where others might suspect a scam.Bonnie agrees to give Vincent temporary refuge in her home. Her disaffected sons accept the stranger as another peculiarily in their lives, already changed by their parents' divorce. The elder, writing a school paper about Hitler, takes Vincent's hint about Hitler's sexuality and takes it too far, resulting in a minature version of the plight of the dissident journalists that BW deplores. Bonnie, numbed from her divorce from a self-absorbed cardiologist, takes on the challenge of making Vincent ready for his closeup as the new face of BW.The transformation is not easy. What transformation is? A dress rehearsal for the upcoming glittering fundraiser begins when Vincent spills red wine on his shirt. It ends with Bonnie, drunk and asleep on Meyer's bed. Meyer, who knows that he has burdened Bonnie with the task of taming the rough-edged stranger, looks at his sleeping aide and "feels like a different person. Purified. Washed clean. It's as if he's come through to the other side... he can experience pure love for a fellow human being... This is what God gives you in return for trying to be conscious and do the right thing."(Yes, even secular saints can lose their way and begin to fret about drug busts at Pride and Prejudice camp, or insert phrases like "moral bungee jump" into their speeches.)The newly-tamed Vincent has a weakness that almost ends his new career - an allergy to nuts - and he has to fight the effects of a single nut in a salad to deliver his speech about - well - about his escape from a nest of nuts. His escape from ARM has not escaped his cousin's notice, and his desire for cover is destroyed as his heroics are publicized. Raymond, the neo-Nazi cousin, hunts him down and confronts him on a live, Oprah-like talk show...Francine Prose has conjured a story that uses fairy tale and archetypal situations and characters in a very modern cautionary tale. The reader will encounter Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Princess and the Pea, dwarves (both physical and moral), Ice Princesses, and the solitary rites of passage that prepare a person to emerge and survive in a new life. The twin devils of political correctness and bigotry are personified in high school classes as well as Raymond's Homeland Encampment. Can it be as dangerous to follow a charismatic leader whose goals are saintly as to follow a demonic historic figure? If Meyer is eager for publicity, is he selling his soul by agreeing to a live appearance with a charismatic talk show host?I loved this book.

Jenny

June 21, 2015

This is the story of a skinhead, Vincent Nolan, who, while taking ecstasy at a rave, suddenly realizes that he’s living the wrong life. He's been living with his cousin Raymond, and has been part of a racist, neo-Nazi group, and now he decides to go offer his services to a group dedicated to world peace, headed by a famous Holocaust survivor. This wry, funny novel moves between Vincent’s point of view, and those of the other characters. We hear their inner dialogue, and everyone is trying to understand everyone else, while also trying to justify their own frailties. There’s Meyer Maslow, the idealistic leader of the charitable foundation, who’s trying to change the world, even though he feels suffocated between fund-raisers and nervous lawyers. There’s his faithful, self-sacrificing assistant, Bonnie, raising two kids on her own. And there’s her slightly delinquent eldest son, Danny. Since Vincent has nowhere to stay, Meyer asks his loyal assistant to take him home & let him sleep on her couch. This rather audacious act is normal in a world of great faith in humanity. Bonnie does it, with a certain amount of trepidation, swinging between trust and anxiety. Danny, both protective and rebellious, deals with this. Meyer probably wouldn’t have second thoughts at all, but his imperious wife Diane is a reality check for him. And then Raymond shows up, upsetting the delicate stasis. One of the interesting things the author does is show us how superficial political opinions can be, in relation to the personal insecurities we all live with. Everyone in this novel is relentlessly, endearingly human, no matter how extreme their views of the world.

Deborah

February 06, 2016

I can't believe that it took me so long to read this book. I liked it a lot, and it never bogged me down. I just bogged myself down. It was a smooth and interesting read, and it was much funnier than I expected. I used to love Francine Prose's novels. The first one I read was Marie Laveau. Many, many years ago, I was browsing in a bookstore or maybe just a book rack, and its colorful cover attracted me. The blurb sounded interesting, and I found myself in a world of North American magical realism. After that, I read several of her earlier and later books.Eventually, her work became too literary and intellectual for my lazy taste, and I stopped following her. I found this book on a freebie table, so I thought that it was worth a shot, especially because the blurbs mentioned its humor. I enjoyed it enough that I am going to look into some of her novels that I ignored. Who would have thought that a book about neo-Nazis and Jews be fun?

Katarzyna

December 30, 2012

This is not a great novel, but it's a peasant one. The story of a former skinhead who comes to work for a foreign aid program run by a Holocaust survivor, and develops a close relationship with a single mom working there, and her two sons. There's nothing especially earth shattering about it, but it's a pleasant read with credible insight into human nature. Granted, everyone in the book - even the quasi-villain - is basically the nicest, most likeable incarnation of their character type that you could imagine, which somewhat mars the book's pretensions to moral inquiry, but the pleasant feel it gives to the whole is, to me at least, a credible trade-off. It's the kind of view you're tempted to describe as "human" - everyone is flawed, but hey, live and let live. Some readers may find it an anaesthetized take on the world, but what can I say, it made for good airplane reading.

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