The thing I love most about narrating nonfiction is that I get to read great books I might otherwise not have picked up according to my interests. It’s not just the educational thrill I get from learning something new or opening my mind to something I’d not even considered, either — there is a genuine and fundamental human component in the research and reporting of specific pockets of subject matter. Be it historical, sexual, or artistic, human experiences are nuanced and diverse, and when authors devote an entire book to focusing on those experiences (especially when it involves amplifying the voices of those who experienced it firsthand), it’s like a concentrated infusion of humanity that forever enriches my own ever-growing, ever-befuddled understanding of the human condition.
I’m in love with storytelling. It’s why I am an artist. It’s why I am an actor and narrator. And as fun as it is to invent stories, stories also are all around us in real life — they just need a little framing and context to be acknowledged as such. Reading RIKERS: AN ORAL HISTORY was a genuine page-turner, full of WTF, SMH, and OMG. It’s a portrait of hell and the system it is a part of, but more than that, the voices of the people who’ve had to spend any amount of time there.
You don’t get the sense that anything has been “sensationalized” in this multi-cast audiobook — it does an excellent job of respecting facts and reporting people’s lived experiences in their own words…which is also precisely why it feels so sensory. It’s easy to generalize why Rikers is arguably one of the worst places on Earth, but to feel why is another experience entirely.
🖤🤎❤🧡💛💚💙💜
Cheers,
Nicky