Charles Fleming has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 3 narrators. The most-rated is Nicky Deuce.
My Lobotomy
Summary
A gut-wrenching memoir by a man who was lobotomized at the age of 12. Assisted by journalist/novelist Charles Fleming, Howard Dully recounts a family tragedy whose Sophoclean proportions he could only sketch in his powerful 2005 broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered. "In 1960," he writes, "I was given a transorbital, or 'ice pick' lobotomy. My stepmother arranged it. My father agreed to it. Dr. Walter Freeman, the father of the American lobotomy, told me he was going to do some 'tests'. It took 10 minutes and cost 200 dollars." Fellow doctors called Freeman's technique barbaric: an ice pick¿like instrument was inserted about three inches into each eye socket and twirled to sever connections from the frontal lobe to the rest of the brain. The procedure was intended to help curb a variety of psychoses by muting emotional responses, but sometimes it irreversibly reduced patients to a childlike state or (in 15 percent of the operations Freeman performed) killed them outright. Dully's 10-minute "test" did neither, but in some ways it had a far crueler result, since it didn't end the unruly behavior that had set his stepmother against him to begin with. "I spent the next 40 years in and out of insane asylums, jails, and halfway houses," he tells us. "I was homeless, alcoholic, and drug-addicted. I was lost." From all accounts, there was no excuse for the lobotomy. Dully had never been "crazy", and his (not very) bad behavior sounds like the typical acting-up of a child in desperate need of affection. His stepmother responded with unrelenting abuse and neglect, and his father allowed her to demonize his son and never admitted his complicity in the lobotomy; Freeman capitalized on their monumental dysfunction. It's a tale of epic horror, and while Dully's courage in telling it inspires awe, listeners are left to speculate about what drove supposedly responsible adults to such unconscionable acts.
©2007 Howard Dully and Charles Fleming (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.
The Goomba's Book of Love
Summary
Move over, Miss Lonelyhearts...Steven R. Schirripa, author of the runaway best seller A Goomba's Guide to Life, is back with more life lessons from the neighborhood, and this time the subject is love. Now, your average goomba may be better known for his penchant for gold chains and macaroni, but Steve Schirripa knows there is one driving force in a goomba's life and that's love: love for his mother and her Sunday sauce; his wife and kids; his friends; his goomar on the side; even for his car (and he better not catch you eating in it, if you know what's good for you). In other words, the goomba is full of love, capice? Recalling stories of his own colorful journey from the streets of Bensonhurst to the bright lights of Las Vegas and stardom as Bobby "Bacala" Baccilieri in HBO's hit series The Sopranos, Schirripa observes the finer points of amore in all its forms. Take, for instance, the boundaries of brotherly love: It's okay, he explains, to go to a Mets game with your buddy but definitely not to a yoga class. Then there's the tough love of la famiglia. Every goomba is a family man, after all. So you want him to tell the truth? Ask him to swear on the heads of his children. Alternately touching, telling, and laugh-out-loud funny, The Goomba's Book of Love proves that no one loves as fiercely (or as frequently) as a goomba.
©2003 Noelani, Inc. and Charles Fleming (P)2003 Random House, Inc., Random House Audio, A Division Of Random House, Inc.
A Goomba's Guide to Life
Summary
Uber-goomba Steve Schirripa shows how being a goomba made him what he is today, offering lessons learned on his own journey from Bensonhurst to Vegas, and to his current gig as Bobby Bacala on one of TV's most popular shows. Along the way, he shares secrets that will help you get in touch with your own inner goomba. You'll learn what music to enjoy (Sinatra, yes; Snoop Dogg, no), what movies to watch (Raging Bull, yes; Titanic, never), which sports to follow (baseball is good; golf and tennis, fuhgeddaboudit), and even tips on goomba etiquette. Ever wonder how a real goomba gets the best seat in the house? (Hint: It involves tipping, jewelry, and intimidation.) Schirripa even includes goomba do's and don'ts (never, ever criticize a goomba's mother or her gravy; always wear more jewelry than you think you need). With insider information on how to think goomba, speak goomba, cook and eat goomba, and even how to behave at goomba weddings and funerals, A Goomba's Guide to Life will show any wiseguy wannabe how to sing like a Soprano.
©2003 Noelani, Inc. and Charles Fleming (P)2003 Random House, Inc., Random House Audio, A Division Of Random House, Inc.
Nicky Deuce
Summary
It's July, and Nicholas Borelli II's parents are scheduled to spend two weeks on a cruise. Nicholas will spend those two weeks, as he does every summer, at Camp Wannameka. The night before he's to leave, however, there?s a phone call: thanks to an explosion in the septic system, camp is canceled. The only place for Nicholas to go instead is to his grandmother's house in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York. Nicholas's father grew up in Brooklyn, but you'd hardly know it. An Italian dinner at Nicholas's house in the suburbs is whole wheat pasta, organic tomato sauce, and, if he's lucky, a tofu meatball. And Brooklyn? Well, Brooklyn is the place his father left and never talks about. Nicholas has never been there, and he doesn't want to go now. But when Nicholas tastes his grandma Tutti's meatballs for the first time, gets a nickname from his uncle Frankie, and makes a friend in the neighborhood, his feelings about Brooklyn, and family, begin to change.
©2005 Steven R. Schirripa and Charles Fleming (P)2005 Random House, Inc. Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Group