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    Trouble No Man: A Novel
    Trouble No Man: A Novel
    Trouble No Man: A Novel
    Audiobook12 hours

    Trouble No Man: A Novel

    Written by Brian Hart

    Narrated by Christian Baskous

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    American War meets Into the Wild in Brian Hart’s epic saga of one man’s struggle to survive a hostile world—tracing his path from a self-destructive, skateboarding youth in the 90s to the near future as he journeys across a desolate, militia-controlled American West to find his missing family—perfect for fans of Edan Lepuki and Cormac McCarthy.

    In the America of a near future, northern California and the Pacific Northwest have become a desolate wasteland controlled by violent separatist militias and marked by a lack of water and fuel. In a village outside Reno, a middle-aged man visits an undertaker and gathers the ashes of his dead wife to bring to Alaska. There, their children await them—refugees from the destruction of the south. To reach his only remaining family, the man must cross the treacherous, violent landscape north by bike, his dog his only companion.

    Thirty years earlier, we meet Roy Bingham. After a rough-and-tumble childhood, Roy is numbing himself with skateboarding, drugs, and sex, when he meets Karen. Sassy, soulful, and arresting, Karen pulls Roy into her orbit until she decides to give up their nomadic lifestyle to put down roots in her hometown of Loyalton, California. Roy’s fidelity buckles under the commitment and after a boozy night in Reno he leaves Karen for the road and skateboarding.

    Flashing back and forth in time across four decades in the life of a man who is lost even when he’s found, Trouble No Man delivers a resonant story of survival, violence, and family, set against the tumult of an America on the precipice of becoming an unfree nation.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJan 29, 2019
    ISBN9780062876508
    Author

    Brian Hart

    A native of Idaho, Brian Hart won the Keener Prize for Literature from the University of Texas at Austin and received an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers there. He is the author of the novel Then Came the Evening. His second novel, The Bully of Order, was a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize. He lives in Idaho with his wife and daughter.

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    Reviews for Trouble No Man

    3.5/5

    21 ratings8 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      Tough book to review, as it was very hard to get through. I have an issue with people switching tenses throughout stories and the author bounces between third person past to third person present.As other people have stated, it has essence of Cormac McCarthy, whose writing I am not fond of. It is a good and interesting theme, ruined by author tricks.
    • 4/5
      Here we have a book that I just know will go unnoticed and not get the appreciation it deserves. It's one of those "things fall apart" novels that take place a hop and skip further in the future. I hesitate to call these types of books "apocalyptic" when things are just beginning to unravel. If this type of book is the sort of thing you read, don't miss this one! The book skips around in time, both before and after the Western United States goes to seed, if you will. Real life California certainly has had it's seemingly apocalyptic amount of disasters recently. At one point in the book, the world is described as a molding orange if astronauts saw it from space. A haunting image. Militias are battling militias and that doesn't go well for anyone. Roy is the main character and we see how he goes from his misguided, skater kid, slightly-less-than-homeless youth. Living in this changed world changes Roy. In the reality of this book (and our own), it's easy to see how this type of world might happen. Simply combine crap politics and crap weather. I am a female and this might be more of a dude oriented book, not that I'm one to read "chicklit". Guns on page one, skating, hunting, militias, welding... Cutting most of the specific technical words on many of these subjects that I don't know anyway would have cut the page number down. Though looking at the book as a whole, I don't think it's too long. But I think there is enough here and enough writing skill to keep anyone interested. I will say I appreciated and adored almost all of the pop culture references (pop culture is more my thing than most of these other subjects). An especially fun one: the main character calling Kurt Vonnegut 'KV' -- which is a thing I do with particular pop culture heroes I admire. The characters are mysterious, often not getting names. The narrative flips back and forth through time. Both of these things could be off-putting to some readers but I thought it flowed well enough. Hart has some writing skill and makes it work. ALSO, there is a great dog, if you're a dog novel person! This reminded of some other "falling apart" novels: 'Far North' by Marcel Theroux, 'California' by Edan Lepucki, 'American War' by Omar El Akkad and some would say 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy but I didn't like that one anyway. I probably read this type of book a bit too much, but I'm glad I didn't miss this one. Reading books like these might be a bit scary when it seems we are on some sort of tipping point, constantly on the verge of this reality, but that means these books are important. They are a great example of what COULD happen any day now. The weather itself could tip the delicate balance and force hard times upon us. I will keep a look out for Brian Hart's other books.
    • 4/5
      In his novel "Trouble No Man", Brian Hart offers a bleak vision of the Pacific Northwest in the near future as America is ravaged by climate change and political disintegration. The descent into anarchy and the brutal fiefdoms of right-wing militias does not seem very contrived in the light of current events in Oregon in which dissident Republican members of the state legislature, objecting to a climate policy bill, have sought refuge with quasi-fascist militia in Idaho, threatened to kill any cops sent to arrest them, and encouraged the assassination of the governor of Oregon if she tries to enforce the law.In Hart's fictional account, we follow the story of Roy as he grows from an immature, professional skateboarder at age 25 to a grizzled, wise and life-scarred man of 55 who is referred to as "the man" until near the end of the story. By then, it's about the year 2035, the world has gone to hell, and he's trying to get to Alaska, where his daughters live, from Northern California with the ashes of his wife. The tale flashes back and forward over the decades between Roy the punk and the sad old survivor trying to reclaim the scattered fragments of his family amidst the ruins of the American West.
    • 3/5
      A novel of the future when some parts of American government have broken down particularly the west coast states. The book follows the protagonist (Roy) at 25, 35, 45 and 55. Roy and the people in his orbit seem to live goalless lives spending a lot of time skateboarding and riding motorcycles. The problem for me is that I really don't like these characters. Roy does have a love interest named Karen but I get very little feeling of love and affection. He also has two daughters. This book may be enjoyed by some but it is not my cup of tea.
    • 4/5
      A dystopian look at our near future, mostly set in a burned over and federally abandoned Northern California. The east slope of the Sierras is a burnt wasteland. In a future that reads familiar to Trump's America and the federal retreat from the Malheur NWR, a secessionist state of Jefferson has supplanted the government. Armed guerrillas roam the land, enforcing frontier justice via checkpoint and control of water. Our protagonist is trying to follow his kids to Alaska with the ashes of their mother.The story slowly unfolds via flashbacks and regrets. The penultimate scene is often hinted at, but only revealed in the final pages of the work. Meanwhile we learn the slow burn of the protagonist's relationship with his wife, starting in a grunge/skater 90s culture to the present-future. I was heavily engaged with this novel. My only complaint, a repeated one, is that there is no need to complicate the timeline through endless flashbacks. Just tell the story, front-to-back, please.
    • 4/5
      Good story, good characters. What do you do when the end of your world happens in slow motion? When you can see it coming but feel like there must be something you can do? The story of a man-child growing into a man at the end of our time. Time-shifting stories aren't my thing, but this one is done well.
    • 2/5
      Extremely confusing as the author bounces you from "Roy" to "Man," from "present day" to a world that has fallen apart by militias. I had to read several different descriptions to realize what was supposed to be happening over the course of this book.The second half of this read was redeeming as it all finally begins to come together. The uncanny realness of the situations occurring is all too close to plausible. The dog was the only character I felt a stake in.*Disclaimer: a review copy of this book was provided by Librarything. All opinions are my own.
    • 4/5
      This novel of the near-future throws the reader right into a constantly changing time-stream that skips around over 4 decades and it's sink or swim to try and figure out what (more like wtf) is going on. After a while, you get the story sorted out and the 'crazy' gets better as you figure out the main characters - a guy named Roy who is a messed up skateboarder, a girl named Karen who he falls in love with - and the others surrounding them as they grow up, create a life, and try to survive in a disintegrating America. This is a tense, masculine, violent novel - lots of references to skateboarding, weapons, drinking, motorcycles, and prepper-survivalist culture. But there's also a lot about growing up, building a life and family, surviving on a small farmstead, and caring for and loving a fine dog. This dog was truly the best character in the novel - as a great dog often is in our real lives. It's an intense story that gets better as it goes - and in the end, it might be somewhat prescient if the political and cultural and environmental problems in these united states get really out of control and everything goes all to hell. Probably a good read for fans of Cormac McCarthy.