E. Jean Carroll is the longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine who was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s; she sued him both for assault and for defamation of character in 2022. The suit resulted in a guilty verdict and an award of $88.3 million in damages. In Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President (Macmillan Audio, 9 hours and 2 minutes) the gifted humorist delivers a blow-by-blow account of the trial, with killer descriptions of everyone from Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba Esq., she of the stiletto heels and “stupendous” cheekbones, to Judge Lewis Kaplan, whose eyebrows become a character in their own right. Now 81, Carroll gives her all to the narration of the audiobook, sometimes exulting, sometimes near tears, engaging the reader in every detail of her experience—which began with a makeover, as she had to convince the jury that she was once just the type of woman who would inspire the president’s predation. In fact, when shown a photo that included Carroll and his then-wife Marla Maples, Trump identified Carroll as his spouse. To relive these moments of triumph with her is a rare delight.
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Keith McNally, founder of the famous Manhattan bistros Balthazar, Pastis, Odeon, Minetta Tavern, and more, hates the term restaurateur—What happened to the “n”? he’d like to know—and this is a man unafraid to lay it on the line about his feelings and inclinations. He is also brave enough to begin his memoir I Regret Almost Everything (Simon & Schuster Audio, 11 hours and 3 minutes) at the lowest point of his existence—a failed suicide attempt, made in response to the devastation wreaked on his career and his marriage by a stroke in 2016. The stroke left him partly paralyzed, with serious speech difficulties, so his audiobook is read by the British actor Richard E. Grant, whose versatile delivery captures the author’s many moods: “Rueful, self-aware, chatty, entertaining, dazzling, and harrowing: a book that contains multitudes,” according to our critic. As delectable and dishy as the food-biz material may be, it’s only part of what’s here—McNally has worked as an actor, screenwriter, and director, has backpacked around the world, and did significant time at the famous McLean psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts, where he was repeatedly caught raiding the refrigerator at 3 a.m.—and where he started this life-reclaiming book.
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A first-rate reader like Grant could probably do justice to any audiobook, but in some cases the unique qualities of an author’s own voice really add to the effect. Mike Albo’s audio original, Hologram Boyfriends: Sex, Love and Overconnection (Macmillan Audio, 6 hours and 14 minutes) begins with Albo’s assertion that he knew he was gay from the moment he was born, and he’s pretty sure the listener has already figured it out, too, from what he calls his “gay accent.” Said accent is perfect for his stories of looking for not just love but also inner peace online: mostly funny but sometimes quite moving, too. And readers who encounter Jill Bialosky’s elegant, time-traveling narrative The End Is the Beginning: A Personal History of My Mother (Recorded Books, 9 hours and 17 minutes) on the page might never imagine the author’s strong Midwestern accent, so evocative of the Cleveland setting of her mother’s life, or the girlish register of her voice, particularly suited for childhood experiences shared with three sisters, often recounted using the collective “we.” “Our mother,” as she is usually referred to, dies in the first chapter of the book and returns eloquently to life in the chronology-reversing vignettes that follow.
Marion Winik is the author of The Big Book of the Dead and hosts the Weekly Reader podcast on NPR.
