Bingos Run

Name: Bingos Run
Brand: Blackstone Audiobooks
Availability: InStock
Author: James A. Levine
ISBN: 9781482950403

Author: James A. Levine

Narrator: Peter Macon

Unabridged: 7 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Published: 01/07/2014

Categories: Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

For fans of Dave Eggers, Teju Cole, and James McBride comes this extraordinary novel of morality and the redemptive powers of art that offers a glimpse into an African underworld rarely described in fiction. Meet Bingo, the greatest drug runner in the slums of Kibera, Nairobi, and maybe the world. A teenage grifter, often mistaken for a younger boy, he faithfully serves Wolf, the drug lord of Kibera. Bingo spends his days throwing rocks at Krazi Hari, the prophet of Kiberas garbage mound; lipping safari tourists of their cash; and hanging out with his best friend, Slo-George, a taciturn fellow whose girth is a mystery to Bingo in a place where there is never enough food. Bingo earns his keep by running white to a host of clients, including Thomas Hunsa, a reclusive artist whose paintings, rooted in African tradition, move him. But when Bingo witnesses a drug-related murder and Wolf sends him to an orphanage for protection, Bingos life changes, and he learns that life itself is the run. A modern trickster tale that draws on African folklore, Bingos Run is a wildly original, often very funny, and always moving story of a boy alone in a corrupt and dangerous world who must depend on his wits and inner resources to survive.

About James A. Levine

James A. Levine is a world-renowned professor of
medicine at the Mayo Clinic who travels around the world working with street
kids. He has won more than fifty major awards in science and gives lectures to
humanitarian groups around the world. Levine is the author of The Blue Notebook.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lucy on February 19, 2014

I really liked the beginning of this novel but it went somewhere totally unexpected and much less interesting. Bingo's ability to manipulate his circumstance is often impressive and actually endearing, despite it usually involving crime. Unfortunately, it turned in to some weird American-saviour pie......more

Goodreads review by Marris_C1 on February 15, 2019

I think the theme of this book is how a family will always stick together and never betray each other. In this book, Bingo's family is being chased by a gang. The gang caught the father and killed him right away. But Bingo and his mom escaped. When the gang found them again, they were threatening th......more

Goodreads review by Briane on March 11, 2016

I am a sucker for stories about, or set in, Africa. I don't think I've ever read a bad one -- from Into the Out Of by Alan Dean Foster to The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver to many, many more, if a story is set in Africa it's going to make my list to read. Bingo's Run is the latest Africa sto......more

Goodreads review by Lisa on July 11, 2017

Finally the last of the Alex Winners. Phew! This book was all over the freaking place. I loved the beginning and then had so many moments of, "wait, what?!" that I found it hard to finish this novel. Bingo's Run tells the story of a teenaged drug runner in Nairobi. With a terrible past, and frankly,......more

Goodreads review by Amy on February 14, 2014

A good read for when you're feeling cynical. Everyone is a hustler in this story of Nairobi slum life. The police chief, the orphanage priest, the art gallery owner, maybe even the hotel cleaner. Certainly Bingo himself. I'm not usually a fan of child narrators, but I fell for Bingo and his 13 comman......more