Audiobooks on Connecticut?

August 11, 2013 10:02 AM

I am moving from Michigan to Waterbury, Connecticut next week to start a new political job. I've never lived in the Northeast, or spent any time in Connecticut. I'd like recommendations on an Audible audio book that will best prepare me either for the general culture or political climate of my new home.
posted by andythebean to Grab Bag (5 answers total)

Connecticut is sort of odd because it's part of New England but parts of it are a lot more New Yorkish. Waterbury is in sort of a neat in-betweenish part of the state. Not really coastal, New Yorkish or Hartford-centered. It's big for New England and it's got a neat industrial past. I am not up on CT lit myself but a few things i was able to dig up

- Secret Life of Walter Mitty is set there.
- Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is an amusing story (and movie) about a family that moves out of their NYC apartment to go to an old farmhouse in CT.
- Stepford Wives is a sort of creepy tale about suburbia
- Revolutionary Road is another recently-popular story about CT suburbia
- Villages by John Updike is another along these lines (warning, all suburbia stories are bleak if not downright dystopian)
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is necessary and will be fun
- If you like mysteries, here is a good list. I have not read any of them.

I'm sure other people will chime in with good books about the coasts and/or the farmlands, sorry what I mostly have is suburban angst stuff.
posted by jessamyn at 11:16 AM on August 11, 2013 [2 favorites]

Stewart O'Nan's Last Night at the Lobster is a pretty good rendition of working-class Connecticut, which is what you'll find in Waterbury.
posted by gnomeloaf at 11:52 AM on August 11, 2013

Wally Lamb's home state factors into his writing. "I Know This Much Is True" and "Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters" are great. The second book is a collection of stories written by women he mentored at a Connecticut prison.

Also, Dominick Dunne's "A Season In Purgatory" and Rick Moody's "The Ice Storm."
posted by Neeuq Nus at 5:45 PM on August 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

If it's the listening and not the audio book format that you're specifically aiming for, I'd recommend listening to the Colin McEnroe show, which does appear to get mirrored to iTunes. He's political and local and funny (the books of his that I'm aware of are humor and not CT-specific, if they are on Audible.)

Connecticut doesn't get a lot of literary attention except as the place New Yorkers go on weekends, which Waterbury is emphatically NOT. (If you have specific questions on local culture, you're welcome to MeMail; I grew up in a similar-demographic town 15 minutes from Waterbury and have lived in the Midwest, and can pretty easily reverse-extrapolate. The main political surprise may be that county-level governance is nearly nonexistent. Towns do pretty much everything, which makes the haves and have nots imbalance pretty stark.)
posted by tchemgrrl at 7:23 PM on August 11, 2013 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks for the recommendations! While I ended up listening to Game Change on my drive out, I now have an excellent CT reading list started. Much appreciated!
posted by andythebean at 4:58 PM on August 18, 2013