SH*TSHOW: THE COUNTRY'S COLLAPSING and the RATINGS ARE GREAT (audiobook) by Charlie LeDuff

Published by Penguin Audio in May of 2018.
Read by the author, Charlie LeDuff.
Duration: 7 hours, 21 minutes.
Unabridged.

Charlie LeDuff has done a lot of things, but mostly he's been a reporter. He's worked all over the place, he won a Pulitzer Prize in New York City but lately he's settled down in Detroit. He told his irreverent version of the collapse of Detroit in Detroit: An American Autopsy. He takes that same vision outside of Detroit in Sh*tshow: The Country's Collapsing and the Ratings are Great and talks about the rest of the country and finds that Detroit may be a mess, but it's hardly unique.

In 2013, LeDuff was offered a job at Fox News travelling the country and taking a look at regular Americans and their struggles in a segment called The Americans. He jumped at it and went all over the place. He went to New York City to look into topless women in Times Square (it's legal). He went to both of the Bundy family standoffs and spent most of his time talking to the hangers on that joined the family. He looked into why car factories in the South are not voting to unionize and into the fast and loose situation at the border (you will never forget the Jet Skis on the Rio Grande).

He went back home to Detroit to tell about the mayor and how his friends caught cushy contracts to tear down abandoned homes and then didn't tear them down. He also looked at the Flint, Michigan water situation and explains it better than anyone else I have heard try to explain it.

He covered the GOP Presidential Debates in 2016, but he was pulled from that story because he refused to take it seriously. LeDuff called it in 2013 before anyone else - America is struggling and would not be in the mood for business as usual in 2016, explaining the rise of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

LeDuff's style is often that of an irreverent rant. He frequently adds in curse words to add some punch (as demonstrated by the title of this book), so if curse words are an issue for you, don't even think about reading this book. His storytelling style sometimes makes you wonder if he is off of his attention-deficit medication, what with the random interjections and the off-the-cuff remarks.

I have no idea if LeDuff votes Democrat or Republican but, as you listen, you realize that he has a larger point, no matter the topic and that point is that the little guy is getting the shaft over and over again while the guys at the top are helping each other get rich.

LeDuff's reading of his book was excellent. This book was so good that I wish it were twice as long and he had covered twice as many topics. LeDuff is always smart, always irreverent and always interesting.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5 and it can be found in multiple formats on Amazon.com here: SH*TSHIW: THE COUNTRY'S COLLAPSING and the RATINGS ARE GREAT by Charlie LeDuff.

DETROIT: AN AMERICAN AUTOPSY (audiobook) by Charlie LeDuff

Published by HighBridge in 2013.

Read by Eric Martin.

Duration: 7 hours, 21 minutes.
Unabridged.

Detroit: An American Autopsy is one of the best audiobooks I have listened to in a very long time.

It made me laugh, made me think, made me glad I don't live in Detroit, made me worried that I live in another Rust Belt city that has lost a lot of its industrial base, and, over and over again, it shocked me.

Charlie LeDuff grew up in the Detroit area and moved away to do a lot of different things, including being a reporter for the New York Times (where he won a Pulitzer Prize). He came back home to Detroit to work for a newspaper and to be close to family. When you go away from someplace and come home you see things a little more clearly and he was more than a little surprised Detroit was not only every bit as bad off as most of the country believes - it was actually a lot worse.

I recently read the book Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein.  In a lot of ways, it is similar to Detroit: An American Autopsy in that they both detail the stories of a community wrecked by the collapse of the American automobile industry during the Great Recession. Janesville, Wisconsin is a small city that lost its lifeblood - a General Motors truck factory. Janesville lost one factory - Detroit has been losing factory after factory after factory for 50+ years. When Charlie LeDuff was growing up in Detroit, it was dying - but nobody knew it. When he returned it was painfully obvious that Detroit was gone.

The author, Charlie LeDuff

But that's too simple. Detroit is not dead. It has firefighters fighting to save the town from chuckleheads that set fire to abandoned homes just to watch the show when the fire department shows up. It has police that keep plugging away, even though Detroit is regularly known as the "murder capitol" and its leadership seems focused on looking good rather than being good. It has people just trying to make a living even though almost all of the good factory jobs are long gone.

It has its lost people, its thieves and hustlers. It has people that use religion as a tool to fleece the people. Its schools are literally falling down around its children. It has people that just don't care. But it also has Keiara Bell, a middle schooler who scolded a member of Detroit's City Council for being rude during a council meeting (if only Keiara Bell had known the half of it). Bell, it turns out, graduated from a Detroit public school, went on to Wayne State University (in Detroit) and graduated and wants to go into city management. She is featured in this TV story by Charlie LeDuff.

This is a tough book. There is no happy ending. It's a messy discussion of race, class, crime, politics, money and LeDuff's personal life and it is compelling. I blasted through this audiobook, looking for chances to listen a little more. Eric Martin read the audiobook and he was perfect for it. He never hit a wrong note as he read the book. I hope he won some sort of award, but in keeping with the theme - why would he? After all, it is about Detroit.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: DETROIT: AN AMERICAN AUTOPSY (audiobook) by Charlie LeDuff.