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    Apex Hides the Hurt
    Apex Hides the Hurt
    Apex Hides the Hurt
    Audiobook5 hours

    Apex Hides the Hurt

    Written by Colson Whitehead

    Narrated by Peter Jay Fernandez

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Best-selling author Colson Whitehead has been a finalist for numerous prestigious honors, including the Pulitzer Prize. His works are lauded for their insight into the state of race in America. Here, a small Midwestern town is having an identity crisis-should they have a new techno-savvy name or a name honoring the freedmen who founded the town? Or is the current name just fine? They call in a professional naming consultant, famous for naming Apex bandages-guaranteed to match any skin color. But even he is losing his faith in monikers.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJan 15, 2008
    ISBN9781440796692
    Apex Hides the Hurt
    Author

    Colson Whitehead

    Colson Whitehead was born in New York City in 1969 and graduated from Harvard College in 1991. He has written four novels, including the Pulitzer-Prize-nominated ‘John Henry Days.’ He has written for, amongst others, The New York Times, Salon and The Village Voice.

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    Reviews for Apex Hides the Hurt

    3.5/5

    150 ratings9 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Our narrator is a name whiz, a guy who names new products. He's been called on to name, or rename, a town. He must dig into the history of this town, which somehow ties in with his own struggles. Very interesting ideas about names, specifically as they relate to America, and race.
    • 2/5
      The town of Winthrop has hired a nomenclature expert. Its three-member ruling council can't decide whether to change its name, or what to change it to. The descendant of the town's original white founding father, Mr. Winthrop, likes the name just as it is. A nouveau rich software developer whose company is now driving the town's industry wants to change the name to New Prosperity. And the mayor, a descendant of the town's original black settlers (who were there before the Winthrops arrived), wants to change the name back to the original name given to the town by its early black settlers, Freedom. They have hired the nomenclature expert to study the issue, and to decide on the name.The nomenclature expert (who is ironically unnamed) is our main point of view character. His prior nomenclature triumph was the development and naming of a multicultural band-aid that would match the user's skin color (or "hide" the hurt). We are in his mind most of the book, and there is a lot, and I mean a lot, of riffing going on there. Every other thought relates to potential products and potential names for them. It's meant to be a satire on advertising and consumerism, I gather, but the result is a book in which the characters are cardboard and the plot is minimal. There were a few funny and inventive parts, but overall I was very disappointed, and mostly skimmed this.2 stars
    • 3/5
      Not anywhere near as good as The Intuitionist, but still enjoyable. I like the names aspect.
    • 2/5
      I should've gone back and read Cassi's review before I listened to this one. I would've said almost exactly the same thing. This is the first book I have listened to that did not translate well. I think I would've enjoyed it more had I been reading it.

      80% of the time I was spacing out because there is nothing really happening. Here's the plot:"marketing man goes to town to rename it. he's there for some time. talks to some people. doesn't clean up his hotel room. a decision is made. the end."

    • 2/5
      You will wait and wait for a torn town to be renamed, might as well have been named Vanilla Bean.Fun and full of mentionable marketing metaphors.
    • 2/5
      I found this book oddly lacking in tension. Not all books have to have tension, but I got the feeling that this book was supposed to. The main character is supposed to decide between two factions in a small town that have different ideas about how or whether to rename the town. The tension between these two opposing parties should be at the heart of this book, but I never felt it.
    • 3/5
      This is my first exposure to Colson Whitehead, and I liked it.A small town hires a "nomenclature consultant" to choose its future name. The local mayor favours the name chosen by the town's founding fathers who were liberated slaves: Freedom. The local aristocrat wants to keep the name his ancestors gave the town (their own, that is): Winthrop. And the high-tech entrepreneur wants something to attract people and investment: New Prospera. Enter the consultant, who studies the town's history and its people. He's brilliant, but suffering a bit of a setback recently.....At turns funny and profound, this is a well-written, satirical look at history and human relationships, which seem to all come down to marketing and image. With the proper name, all is possible and right with the world. But, sometimes names "hide the hurt" with disastrous consequences.A stroke of genius in that the nomenclature consultant remains un-named throughout the book!
    • 3/5
      The latest by Whitehead was a bit of a disappointment for me. Sure, it still has the brilliant writing, the slightly weird but gets under your skin symbolism, the sardonic world-weary knowingness, the wft happened in US race relations perspective, the scathing humor and all the other Whiteheadisms I've grown to love. Maybe it was that I listened to it from an audible download and didn't really like the reader. It seemed a little small after John Henry Days.
    • 4/5
      Whitehead Brings the SnarkAPEX HIDES THE HURTA nameless nomenclature consultant comes to the town of Winthrop, which is looking to change its name. Three prominent citizens have different ideas about what to call the town. The mayor, a descendant of the escaped slaves that founded the town, want to name it Freedom. Albie Winthrop, a descendant of the robber baron who bought an industry—barbed wire fence production—wants to keep the name Winthrop. And Lucky Aberdeen, a software guru who has revitalized the town’s economy, votes for New Prospera.Whitehead’s protagonist, who has suffered a recent fall from grace, wanders through the town, feted and seduced by the three factions. On this framework, Whitehead examines contemporary culture, history, advertising, race relations, and the whole process of branding. The satire and snark is laid on thick, in Whitehead’s crisp sentences that sparkle like the driest of ginger ale. It’s part Dilbert, part Invisible Man. It is chockfull of quotable one-liners, yet it manages to be profound. All the shiny new names, rebranding, focus groups and target demographics can’t hide the wounds inflicted by history.