Trouble No Man audiobook

Trouble No Man surprised me in the best way possible. Most of the Goodreads recommendations I've read have been underwhelming, but this one, wow, knocked my socks off.Protagonist Roy Bingham (variously referred to as R, M, Roy, & most often simply the man) is a free-spirited, independent, adventure-seeking skateboarder, surfer, and loner, and Hart often uses language specific to those lifestyles that is dense and may sometimes be difficult to decipher for readers, like me, who know nothing of those pursuits. Except for that quirk, though, the prose is lucid, fluid, and perfectly suited to the harsh environment and brutal lives the characters are forced to endure. Some of the blurbs I read compare Hart favorably with Cormac McCarthy, and that's apt, but Hart's writing is somewhat easier to follow. At least he uses punctuation and quotation marks to signify dialogue.Few of the characters in Trouble No Man are innocent, but Roy himself, who ranges in age from 55, is a stubborn, mean, selfish, inconsiderate, confrontational, pill-popping, booze-swilling, commitment-phobic asshole who goes to great lengths to avoid being beholden to anyone else's will. Until he doesn't. After which he becomes single-minded in his determination to protect and provide for his family, not all of whom are related by blood, at all costs. He reminds me very much of myself; I didn't grow up until after I turned 35. I think that's the main reason I liked this book so much. Roy is me. Except a competent me who's able to survive in a deadly world that would probably kill me pretty quickly.In addition to the language and the thoroughly-imagined, relatable, & realistic characters; dead-on descriptions of the post-catastrophe West; and the best damned dog, Pecos, since Rin Tin Tin, two things make Trouble No Man a great work of literature.The first is its entirely plausible and realistic story of societal breakdown. Although I shelved it as post-apocalyptic, you'll notice I did not also shelve it as sci-fi. I have no trouble believing that this very scenario could happen here in America, possibly even within the next 10 or 20 years, which is when the book is set, and that this is almost exactly how it would happen and what it would look like.Second is Hart's total avoidance of overtly blaming the apocalypse on the hot-button political arguments of our time and those who stand on either side of the Red/Blue divide. Trouble No Man is not conservative or liberal propaganda. It doesn't demonize or praise either group; it flat out refuses even to engage in a political argument. It's merely the brutally honest reporting of how those who live through such a catastrophe struggle to survive and carve out a niche for themselves in a depleted world that hasn't come to pass.Yet. I'm going to add this one to my Amazon wish list and hope someone gives it to me for my birthday or Christmas. And I'm damn sure going to read some more of Hart's work. If it's half as good as Trouble No Man, consider me a new fan.

This book made my heart race, made me nauseous, made me uncomfortable. I feel very small after finishing it; horrified, yet rebelliously optimistic, like the angel of denial is on my shoulder and I'm resigned to living like the atmosphere described in this book could never become a possibility. Still, I'm seeing this book's atmosphere emerging in areas of my own country as well as abroad every single day, and the news is really overwhelming, so I tune out in order to maintain positive momentum. My role model is Mother Teresa, not Rambo. "If you want to change to world, go home and love your family." Still, look how that worked out for the characters in this story. Not too well at all. I spend a lot of time thinking about what my role would be in a political meltdown/militia state/firepower-is-everything situation. I'm a bookworm. I like peace and quiet and snuggling. I respect nature -- I have big dogs and snakes as pets -- but I don't believe that the sort of tribal biggest-stick violence described in this book is "natural", but that it's a symptom of societal diseases like oligarchy and artificial scarcity of resources. Sometimes I think I'd be one of the first to go, since I'm sensitive and hate conflict. Plus, I'm a college-educated white lady living in a nice neighborhood. Let's get real -- once society falls apart, privileges like mine don't mean diddly squat anymore. I'm a doughy, vulnerable weakling when it comes to balls-to-the-wall warfare. But in a real testing situation, I'm resourceful, I'm no-nonsense, and I might survive, if not thrive. Who knows. That's why books like this challenge me. I tore through it, hating it the whole time, and as I turned the final page the last thing I thought was... **minor spoiler alert!!**"WHEW!!! The dog (my favorite character) made it." Still, I'll never forget this book, although we're well into the holiday season as I'm finishing it and I really need something wholesome after this. The closest comparable novel I can think of right now is Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD. Yeah. It's pretty much that dark.Side note: the main protagonist is the biggest douchebag ever. It was really hard to like him or respect him at all, despite everything, because he's just SO IRRITATING, self-centered, nihilistic, even cruel.

I was slow to catch on to Hart's storytelling style at first, but once I fell in line I fell in love with the characters and the storyline. The dystopian narrative unfolds gradually and without the overdone clichés that riddle other books in the genre. Any comparison to well known apocalyptic writers or novels is merely to draw your attention; this one is in a class of its own as far as I am concerned.

** spoiler alert ** I enjoyed most of this book. It took a little while to get moving, but once it did I was hooked. I was very much invested in the man's story and found it very enjoyable hunting for the little clues proving the connections between timelines. I did not like the ending however, it felt very forced and it didn't really fit with the tone of the rest of the book. I suppose the author did suggest a tragedy/trauma must have occurred to cause the change between the two later Roy's, but the abruptness and violence of it were jarring. Overall though it was still a pretty solid read.

TROUBLE NO MAN, by Brian Hart, is an emotional rollercoaster that follows Roy Bingham at four different points in his life over forty years. Spanning from the 1990's through a near future where militia control dominates the land, the reader experiences love, hate, betrayal, hope, desperation, addiction, and pure animalistic survival. Roy Bingham made some bad choices early is his adult life, a lot of bad choices, but as he has grown older, he has learned to savor the life he has and hold onto the love and happiness he finds in his family. By having faults and then learning and growing from them, the reader connects to Roy and yearns for him to succeed in life. The backdrop of an increased militia presence in California, where most of the story is set, provides a haunting presence throughout the book, as if at any moment 0ne of the militia groups will upend the Bingham's lives. While the focus of the story is Roy, the author Hart does a good job of developing the supporting characters, like Roy's companion, Karen, and his neighbor later in life, Mr. Miller. I did struggle a little with Hart's style of describing many of the action sequences. I will freely acknowledge that I might be alone in this, but I had to often reread the action sequences to understand what happened, it was as if Hart left some details out and the reader was supposed to fill in the blanks. Also, some of the skater terminology was lost on me, I had to stop and look some of it up. Overall, TROUBLE NO MAN, is a compelling book about a man finding himself and the struggling to keep what he has figured out is important to him. Anyone who enjoys reading about the struggle to survive and following characters who search for what is most important to them will enjoy this book. I received this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

I’m not sure where I originally heard of this upcoming novel, but as soon as I read the synopsis I contacted Harper Perennial to request a review copy. I had never heard of the author, Brian Hart, but he was being compared to Cormac McCarthy, one of my favorite writers; the plot was also post-apocalyptic, which is my favorite genre. I knew immediately that I wanted to read this, and am very grateful to the publisher for sending me a copy.The aspect of this book that I enjoyed the most was the muddled timeline. Each chapter is set during a different decade of Roy Bingham’s life. As the story progresses, you start to piece things together. I found myself flying through the pages because I wanted to find out what happened next in his life. The layout and progression of the chapters were perfectly done.I’ve mentioned several times on this blog that I enjoy books about characters that are unlikeable, and this is certainly one of those novels. Although Roy starts to grow on you toward the end of the book, for the majority of the story I found him immensely unlikable and selfish. His personality is such a large part of the story, however, and is important to his growth, so his off-putting personality is actually very enjoyable, and it’s nice to see how much he evolves over the course of his entire life. People always change as they get older, and it was refreshing to watch that happen to his character.There are thousands of post-apocalyptic novels in the world right now and, while I would read just about any of them, the ones I enjoy the most are the ones that feel as though they could actually happen. This book isn’t scary, but it is certainly unsettling due to how realistic the scenarios are. It is not hard to imagine that in a world without water militias would take control of localities and violence would explode.

It took me a while to get along with this odd novel ... and then suddenly, without warning, I was consumed. It reads like a mixture of Cormac McCarthys near apocalypse The Road - all poetic flourish and masculine, practical detail - mixed in with a Gen-X tale that reads like Chuck Palahniuk or Douglas Copeland if they were capable of beauty. There are odd stylistic flourishes and a needless ambiguity I’m done parts (namely a pointless obscurity about the nature of the main character). These quibbles aside though, it’s a brilliantly disconcerting dystopia that is never fantastical enough to be unbelievable, and in places all TOO recognisable as the very next step or two in our current global crisis. Hart writes with an eye for gorgeous mundanity and a sense of toughness that never strays into macho. What starts as a story of a lonely, violet man turns into something much more heartfelt and warm - a tonal change that mirrors it’s protagonists development. It’s a great addition to the dystopian genre and I’ll be reading it again one day to tease out the details I missed.

I’ve been anxiously waiting for the release of this book and have not been disappointed. Brian Hart’s 3rd novel, Trouble No Man, is at the same time stylistically divergent from his first two books, while adherent to and indicative of Brian’s evolving skill.The novel is set in a not too distant future and a recent past through the eyes of Roy Bingham, a semi-pro skater in the 90’s as he figures his way through an increasingly unstable and harrowing U.S.A. and world into an unspecified near future. Trouble No Man is an eerily prescient page turner, extremely readable and deeply thought provoking.

This was a fun book. It takes place in the near future in Northern California (specifically Sacramento and Rancho Cordova where I grew up ) where there is a civil war happening. It is about a guy that is taking his recently deceased wife's ashes up to his kids in Alaska all the while trying to escape California and the whole civil war situation. The story was written between flash backs and present time in the story itself. It was emotional, realistic and very interesting. My only drawback to the thing was that it drones on in a few spots, but other than that it was great.

Started off kind of slow in a way, I was a little confused to why I had placed a hold on the novel in the beginning. Even looked it back up during ready to try and remember. Then I got invested and frankly was fairly blown away.Interesting read, surprising and subtle. I really disliked some parts and loved others, so completely worth it. Feels like a journey.

This story is disturbingly plausible as it follows four decades of Roy Bingham's life. The erosion and degradation of America through that time makes Roy's struggles even more desperate. There are times of tenderness and love, but this is primarily a dark novel of what could happen in the future. I received this novel as part of the Goodreads Giveaway program.

A gripping portrayal of one man’s growth in the face of dissolution This was an exceptional book. The evolution of the main characters was realistic and the erosion of society all too realistic. You can feel the weary ness and pain. He is an author to follow.

Exceeded expectations

Better than I expected...

Actual not quite 4....3.75