The Dakota Winters audiobook

The Dakota Winters by Tom Barbash is a 2019 Ecco publication. Melancholy, offbeat, humorous, nostalgic and quirky!! For some reason, when I added this book, I thought it was a non-fiction book about the Dakota apartments written by a real- life resident telling stories about his encounters with some of the famous residents. Well, as it turns out, this is a novel, set in New York City, in 1979 and is centered around the Winter family. Buddy Winter is a washed -up talk show host, who went into seclusion after a very public meltdown. His son, Anton, has just returned home from the Peace Corps after surviving Malaria. Now the timing feels right for Buddy to attempt a comeback, but he leans heavily on Anton to help him. Anton, however, feels trapped in Buddy’s shadow, wishing he could break free and find success on his own merit. The Dakota remains “‘The Winters’” home, despite their fragile economic state. This set up allows Anton to run into the infamous apartment’s most famous residents, one which is John Lennon. As it happens, John, at this stage in his life, is also ready to stage a comeback. Anton and John strike up a friendship, and Anton begins to plot out ways to convince John to be a guest on Buddy’s new show, which he also hopes will help both John and Buddy. If you have the chance, add the audio version to complement this book. This is a poignant and nostalgic look back at New York City in 1979. The narrator did a fairly decent impression of John Lennon and Ted Kennedy as well as few other famous figures in this era. The story itself is a little eccentric, with an undercurrent of dolefulness, which contrasts against the cautionary optimism of second chances and new beginnings. Although the book was not at all what I was expecting, I found myself caught up in it, enjoying the trip down memory lane and the poignancy of touching base with John Lennon during the last year of his life, even if it was a fictional imagining. The ending was bit too abrupt, although the reader knows where everything is headed, and what to expect. Still, I thought the story was original and off the beaten path, which is always a good thing for someone like me, who can become easily bored with traditional genres. Overall, this was an enjoyable read and I’m glad a stumbled across it and was able to readjust my preconceptions about it. 3.5 rounded up.

In 1979, Anton, the son of a late night talk show host returns from Africa to his family home at the Dakota to recover from Malaria. Prior to his stint in the Peace Corps, his depressed father detonates his career by walking off the set mid-show and travels to parts unknown to find himself. He has returned by the time Anton comes home and the novel focuses on a family revolving around a talented father attempting to make a come-back. John Lennon makes an appearance as do other celebrities. I was charmed, nostalgic for a NYC that no longer exists and I fell a little in love with affable, lost and delightful Anton.

Audiobook....narrated by Jim Meskimen I absolutely loved every minute spent listening to Tom Barbash’s novel. I read his collection of short stories, “Stay Up With Me”, years ago - and honestly thought - and still think - they were one of the best collection of short stories I had/ have ever read. I’m not sure why I didn’t jump to read “The Dakota Winters”, when it first came out. I think I saw low reviews?? But I didn’t remember anything about this book until 2 weeks ago when I had the pleasure of sitting center front row in a gorgeous mid-to-small size lecture hall - in soft comfy chairs - in Berkeley - two weeks ago - listening to Tom Barbash talk with 3 other authors... at the Bay Area Book Festival. All the authors in the room were terrific: it was one of my favorite rooms I attended ... ( well, Rene Delfeld was wonderful in another room - with a panel of other inspiring women fiction writers - and the International authors from Scandinavian counties were great too)...but Tom stood out for me. Down to earth - great guy!! I downloaded this library overdrive novel with low expectations: for the book itself, and knowing ‘fiction’ books are hit-and-mix in Audio-format....but WOW... I was HOOKED ... really hooked. I stayed interested from start to finish. Random thoughts of what I loved about “The Dakota Winters”:... surprisingly, the storytelling itself. I don’t always love ‘every’ book written in-and-about-and- around- New York - like many New York fans do. But when I do I really do. “The Nix” by Nathan Hill, was a stand out. Or name dropping of big names, (John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Ted and Joan Kennedy, Johnny Carlson, etc)... but I loved it in this book.... it worked ‘naturally’ with the focus on the Winters family. Yoko bought 5 apartments in the building. ...the books voice narrator was soo easy to be with... perfect!! ...loved the subtlety in the way Tom Barbash’s characters come to life and are altered. They feel genuine... having normal & interesting conversations....with a complex moving, tender father/son relationship. ...the storytelling/dialoguesand nostalgia (late 70’s/early 80’s), warmed my heart and imagination....with great visuals of The Dakota apartment ( upper west side building)...the Winters family who lived in it....and the story of John Lennon leading up to his assassination before the housing boom in NYC. Some delicious food scenes too - so best not to be hungry reading parts. ...Anton Winter is just home from peace corps- recovering from malaria..( having almost died of it)...Buddy Winter ( Anton’s father...who was famous as a late night talk show host - suffered a nervous breakdown a few years ago. Buddy wants his son, Anton, to help him re-kindle his TV career. I liked Anton’s friends- mom, sister. I liked them all. ...There were times I laughed out loud...so funny!Other times I just felt sad. Most...I really loved these characters... it was like stepping into their lives. I was with them too. Wonderful emotionally engaging novel - fiction and history ... it had it all for me. I’m becoming a huge fan of Tom Barbash.He’s a TERRIFIC storyteller a master at developing character. What more can I ask for in a novel? Even though we know how the story is going to end before it begins... The descriptions were so beautiful ...tears filled my eyes and heart. After it ended listened to a few Beatle songs. Reading this book put me in the mood to see the new movie - *Yesterday* - opening Friday, June 28th in my area. One of myfavorite family saga Audiobooks I’ve listen to all year!!

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were staying with friends in New York who live on W. 71st St. between Columbus and Amsterdam. On a walk, we saw The Dakota in all its present-day glory and talked about the assassination of John Lennon at its entrance. The last two times my wife and I went to New York, we stayed at hotels on the Upper West Side, and I have gotten to know the area fairly well. The Dakota Winters takes place in the Upper West Side in the year 1980 and follows the lives of the Winters, particularly the father Buddy and his son Anton. Buddy is a famous talk show host who has been off the air for a while following a nervous breakdown. His son, Anton, is just back from Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer, after having nearly died of Malaria and Dysentery. He is somewhat lost and is convinced to help his father get back on TV.Another strong subplot line involves John Lennon with whom Anton becomes friends. They sail with some others to Bermuda, encountering a severe storm on the way. John Lennon is trying to make a comeback of sorts himself following some aberrant behavior when he was out in Los Angelos. One of Anton's main reason for befriending John is that he wants to ask him to be on Buddy's new Friday night show. What I loved so much about this book was the depiction of the Upper West Side in the early 1980s. Apparently it was a bit different from how it is today, a bit seedier and less high class. It was much more of a haven for drug users and dealers and much less safe than it is today. And the author really puts you right there. He creates very well-developed fictional characters and mixes them seamlessly with real historical ones. I found myself living vicariously through these characters, meeting their heroes. The author also did his research as regards The Dakota as well. It is known as a building for the rich and famous. Actually the top floors were rather funky and housed servants and mistresses of the people on the lower floors. I was surprised to learn this.This is a novel of character and revolves around a filial relationship. Anton struggle to find his place in the world apart from his famous father. And the author handles this theme superbly.

I was just little over a year old when John Lennon was killed, and writing this review is it just days after the 38 anniversary of his death. And, this story was extra poignant when you think about how much John Lennon had left to give when his life was cut short. This is a fictional story, but Tom Barbash writes in a way that makes it all feel real. Like Anton, his father Buddy and the rest of the family really existed. Cudos to Barbash to make fictional characters come to life.I loved reading a story set in New York 79/80. I'm too young to remember those years, but nevertheless, it made me nostalgic. And, letting Dakota, one of the most iconic buildings in the city be the central point was a great move. I loved getting to know Anton and Buddy. To follow them as Anton tries to help his father return to the limelight as well as trying to find his own place outside his father's shadow. There is so much going on the world, the Olympics, Ted Kennedy's campaign. I really, really loved Joan Kennedy part in this story. As the saying goes, "behind every successful man there's a woman". And, Joan really showed in this story how to rise above Ted's infidelities. Not to mention standing by Ted, despite the Chappaquiddick incident that in the end ruined his political ambitions.There is so much going in this book. I first gave the book four stars. However, when I started to write this review did I start to think about how much I enjoyed this story. And, how sad I was to have to say goodbye to Anton and the rest of the characters at the end of the book. So, I raised the rating to five stars. I warmly recommend this book!I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!

This is one of my least favorite genres, fictionalized biography. However, I have a special affection for the time span, 1979-80, particularly since I spent much time then in NYC, in love with the worn glamor of the upper west side. Tom Barbash writes well of that era, that place. I remember some of his short stories that evoked the same emotions. What I felt was less successful was the personalized interaction with John Lennon and his son Sean (Yoko mostly offstage), and the Ted Kennedys. The story of Anton, the protagonist, was more compelling, as he tries to overcome both his tropical diseases incurred while serving in the Peace Corps, and to help his downward spiraling father regain his foothold as a popular late night talk host who is probably a combination of Jack Paar and Dick Cavett. It's a late coming of age in a New York that doesn't exist any more.

Please please me, oh yeah.“There was an unwritten code in the Dakota that you made nothing of people’s celebrity and you treated everyone simply as neighbours, and for the most part we did.”Not, as you might suppose, a bleak seasonal tale set in the American Midwest but the story of the Winter family living in Manhattan’s fabled Dakota building in the mid-seventies. The Dakota was home to John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1979, the year before Lennon was killed, and the inevitable outcome of this appealing novel gives it an interesting edge. Yet at no point does the author overplay his hand; such limited foreshadowing as Tom Barbash allows himself is handled with the utmost subtlety and is more the writer’s reflection of the city’s tense urban scene during that era.Twenty-three year old narrator Anton, has returned home from the Peace Corps in Gabon to recover from a severe bout of malaria. Two years previously, his father Buddy Winter, a popular and well-respected chat-show host, had a meltdown live on television. Buddy is now itching to get back on the box and wants his son to help him but Anton has always felt ambivalent about living life in his father’s shadow. When Dakota neighbour John Lennon asks Anton to teach him how to sail, Anton can see the possibility of another life, and even though he's been brought up surrounded by celebrities, even he feels star-struck. Well, who wouldn’t be?Tom Barbash deftly interweaves his fictional story with true-life luminaries from Leonard Bernstein to Teddy Kennedy and tells this great story about Lauren Bacall on Buddy’s chat-show “as she excoriated Frank Sinatra, who romanced her after Bogart died, and eventually proposed but told her, she said, not to tell anyone. At a black-tie event she told a friend in confidence, who managed to whisper it to Swifty Lazar, who that night wrote about it in the Examiner. She called Sinatra after the story ran, and he told her what was done was done, but they’d have to ‘lay low’ for the time being. ‘It’s like you robbed a bank.’‘In his eyes I had.’‘Then what happened?’ Buddy said.‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well, he never spoke to me again after that.’ Someone gasped.‘He’ll get his,’ Buddy said. ‘Time wounds all heels.’”Other than Lennon’s voice (which didn’t quite ring true to me) there is so much to admire and enjoy here. Tom Barbash has a remarkably light touch and can bring forth human insights as well as wry humour without ever losing sight of his tender underlying story of a father and a son, as well as the penalties of extreme fame and the rewards that may – or may not – be worth it.My grateful thanks to Simon & Schuster UK for the review copy courtesy of NetGalley.

Loved it. LOVED. IT.

Unexpectedly lovely. This snagged me because of the narrator's voice--it read almost like memoir. For some reason it kept reminding me of Ward Just's An Unfinished Season, even though I read that book ages ago and hardly remember it. It also paired bizarrely well with The Buddha of Suburbia, another bildungsroman from a completely different perspective.

Tom Barbash hat ein wundervolles Buch geschrieben. Wir begleiten die Familie Winter im Jahr 1980 vor allem in New York. Der Fokus liegt auf Vater und Sohn. Obwohl es in "Mein Vater, John Lennon und das beste Jahr unseres Lebens" um durchaus ernsthafte Dinge geht, ist es ein humorvolles und unterhaltsames Buch. Die Zeit und die Stadt werden in wenigen Sätzen mit Bausteinen aus Fernsehen, Politik, Musik und Film so prägnant gezeichnet, dass man den Eindruck hat, dabei zu sein, wenn die Menschen sich im Hotel, bei den Olympischen Spielen oder auf den Straßen New Yorks begegnen. Die Szenerie könnte von einem optimistischen 80er-Jahre Geistesverwandten F. Scott Fitzgeralds erschaffen worden sein. Die Sprache ist einfacher und zugänglicher, aber nie trivial.

Visit the locations in the novel - NYCThe Dakota Winters is a story of the residents of the famous Dakota building in New York. This of course was the very spot where John Lennon and Yoko lived and where he ultimately died in a tragic shooting.Anton Winter is the narrator of the story and it’s through his eyes we see events leading up to the day of the shooting. He is the son of Buddy Winter who was a famous talk show host and who is now attempting a come back. For a man now surrounded by fame and fortune, he and his family feel the loss of not being part of the scene. Anton is back from a tour in the Peace Corps where he contracted malaria and so is resting. He however soon gets involved in his father’s comeback.The Winters love the fact that their building is famous – Rosemary’s Baby was filmed there – and there are many references to films and famous inhabitants of the building. There’s a real sense of the music in the films, music and many cafes and clubs referenced throughout. The characters live and breathe the city so much that it comes to life from the page. The reader, living in the present day, knows all too well what is about to happen.This is not just a story about John Lennon or the Dakota however. This is also a story about how fame and fortune can corrupt. Anton is constantly moaning about his status and his family’s position despite living in the most luxurious building in the city and having wealth and privilege others can only dream of. It does show that fame and fortune are not everything and that a gilded cage is still a cage.The story of Anton and his father was supposed to be the central plot to the book I think, but it was more the Dakota’s story and John Lennon which appealed to me. The father- son relationship goes through many twists and turns and roles are reversed when Anton has to be the one to help his father through his dark times. Anton is behind the comeback and Buddy comes to rely on him more and more. It’s as Anton raises his father up and then leaves him to get on with his own life that the tragedy of the John Lennon shooting occurs.Timing, wrong place wrong time, our place in the world and in our family. How one moment can change everything. The rumbles of the shooting and of that realisation can be felt as you turn the last page.

Novel set in and around the Dakota Building NEW YORK 1980Tom Barbash’s latest novel focuses on a difficult period for the Winters, a family who live in the Dakota, an apartment block in Upper West Side, New York – hence the title.The Dakota, famously the setting for the film Rosemary’s Baby and the apartment block outside which John Lennon was shot, is where Anton Winter, aged 23, returns following a stint with the Peace Corps. Anton has contracted malaria and comes home to convalesce. His father, the celebrated talk-show host Buddy Winter, is also at home recovering from a nervous breakdown which culminated in him walking out of his live show, a form of professional suicide from which he seems unlikely to recover. Anton’s mother is busy helping Teddy Kennedy’s campaign, Kip, Anton’s younger brother, is at school and his sister Rachel has moved out so Anton and Buddy find themselves at a loose end together and Anton takes on the task of restarting his father’s career. When he’s not engineering Buddy’s comeback, Anton busies himself working as a busboy at a restaurant in Central Park, goes off on a sailing trip with John Lennon (John and Yoko are neighbours and friends with Buddy’s parents) and starts a romance with an English journalist.The Dakota Winters is a tour de force in terms of re-creating time and place. The novel is packed with references to specific events and peopled with a host of actors, rock stars, politicians and generally anyone who featured on famous talk shows in this period. New York in 1980 is brilliantly evoked as Anton takes the reader to the fashionable bars and restaurants of the period, making for a very interesting and entertaining read. But, of course, as we follow Anton through the year and witness his recovery and the increasing likelihood of Buddy’s successful comeback, it is impossible to forget that we are heading towards December and the fate that awaits John Lennon.Anton’s relationship with his father is central to the novel and holds the reader’s attention when they might otherwise have been overwhelmed by the avalanche of celebrity gossip. Anton grew up very much in the shadow of his father’s fame and has made it his mission to know more about Buddy and his career than anyone else. At the beginning of the novel Anton’s personality is subsumed by Buddy’s greater persona; Buddy even steals Anton’s Peace Corps stories, but as the story develops and as Buddy comes to rely more and more on Anton to fix his career, the roles reverse. As a child, Anton was taught to swim by Buddy’s rather brutal method of chucking the child in the ocean and telling him to blow bubbles as he struggled to shore. At the end of the novel, as Anton launches Buddy into a new career, “Here you go, Buddy Boy, now swim, swim!”, he feels like a parent dropping their kid at college and then heading off to get on with their own life.As Anton finally breaks free from his brilliantly clever, but needy father and goes off to make his own career, the dreaded event of the assassination of John Lennon occurs and the reader is left pondering the ephemeral nature of fame and fortune.The Dakota Winters is not without flaws but it is packed with interesting anecdotes and a plethora of entertaining characters and its portrayal of a difficult father-son relationship gradually evolving into something solid and lasting makes it worth reading.