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    A Student of History
    A Student of History
    A Student of History
    Audiobook7 hours

    A Student of History

    Written by Nina Revoyr

    Narrated by Tim Fannon

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A contemporary Los Angeles story of uncrossable social lines, allegiance and betrayal, immeasurable power, and the ways the present is continually shaped by the past. Rick Nagano is a graduate student in the history department at USC, struggling to make rent on the South Los Angeles apartment near the neighborhood where his family once lived. When he lands a job as a research assistant for the elderly Mrs. W--, the heir to an oil fortune, he sees it at first simply as a source of extra cash. But as he grows closer to the iconoclastic, charming, and feisty Mrs. W--, he gets drawn into a world of privilege and wealth far different from his racially mixed, blue-collar beginnings. Putting aside his half-finished dissertation, Rick sets up office in Mrs. W--'s grand Bel Air mansion and begins to transcribe her journals--which document an old Los Angeles not described in his history books. He also accompanies Mrs. W-- to venues frequented by the descendants of the land and oil barons who built the city. One evening, at an event, he meets Fiona Morgan--the elegant scion of an old steel family--who takes an interest in his studies. Irresistibly drawn to Fiona, he agrees to help her with a project of questionable merit in the hopes he'll win her favor. The Student of History explores both the beginnings of Los Angeles and present-day dynamics of race and class. It offers a window into the usually hidden world of high society, and the influence of historic families on current events. Like Great Expectations and The Great Gatsby, it features, in Rick Nagano, a young man of modest means who is navigating a world where he doesn't belong. Set in a modern-day Los Angeles that's both familiar and unknown, The Student of History is a story of uncrossable social lines, allegiance and betrayal, immeasurable power, and the ways the present is continually shaped by the past.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMar 5, 2019
    ISBN9781980007395
    A Student of History
    Author

    Nina Revoyr

    Nina Revoyr is the author of four previous novels, including The Age of Dreaming, which was nominated for the LA Times Book Prize; Southland, a Los Angeles Times best seller and "Best Book" of 2003; and Wingshooters, which won an Indie Booksellers' Choice Award and was selected by O, The Oprah Magazine as one of "10 Titles to Pick Up Now." Revoyr lives and works in Los Angeles. Lost Canyon is her latest novel.

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    Reviews for A Student of History

    3.5/5

    31 ratings11 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Couldn't put it down. Revoyr's writing is so good...I felt like I was walking along with Rick, looking over his shoulder.

      Will someone I know please hurry up and read it so we can talk about it?!
    • 3/5
      I don't know much about Los Angeles, so I don't know how well the city was portrayed. This was a decent read about a grad student who gets pulled into the social circle of his wealthy employer.
    • 4/5
      As a grad student considering the merit, and likelihood of finishing, his current California history paper, Rick Nagano, accepts a well paying commission to scribe the papers of a California Matriarch. Her philanthropic activities speak to a need for privacy, and containment, of power over acknowledgment. Nagano's growing disinterest in his own scholarship is paramount to the increasing need to uncover his Patron's hidden past, one in which she has no interest in relinquishing hold. The view of Los Angeles, the sense of times gone by, the complications of their interactions, brought Sunset Boulevard to mind while Rick navigated his slimming future.
    • 5/5
      The back cover of A Student of History has many notable publications referring to Nina Revoyr as a great chronicler of Los Angeles history and myth, but my fascination with her novel were with its characters, not its location nor its myths. Rick Nagano, the selfish and lazy graduate student of history, frustrated me so much. I wanted him to be a better person, and he disappointed me for most of the book. I found myself silently and frequently urging him not to do the things he ended up doing. While having a profound dislike for Mrs. W, I still did not want him to betray her trust. I think that had more to do with how I felt for Rick than for Mrs. W. The conclusion to the novel was fitting and satisfying. I would recommend the book. It held my interest throughout.
    • 3/5
      This book did a good job introducing a part of Los Angeles that I have no personal connection to (the realm of the extremely weathy) while portraying most of the characters as real people not just caricatures. That said I didn't feel enough of a connection to Richard to follow him along the moral choices he made.
    • 3/5
      Grad student Rick Nagano’s life isn’t going well. He’s been stuck on his thesis for months and sees no future for it, his grant is about to run out and not be renewed, and his girlfriend has dumped him. Then things turn better: his friend is leaving the country, and leaving her job as a research assistant to a rich woman. She’s recommended Rick for the job. When he auditions for the role, Mrs. W_ takes him on. His money woes, at least, are cured for the moment. His job for Mrs. W_ is to read through her old journals and make a computer document out of them. This, he realizes, may also solve his thesis problem: to a historian specializing in Los Angeles history, the journals are a heretofore unseen look at the lives of the upper crust in the early and mid-20th century. Of course, Mrs. W_ has sworn him to never reveal anything in the journals... but he’ll worry about that later. Meanwhile, Mrs. W_ is also using him as a ‘walker’- a man who a rich woman/celebrity uses as an escort to social functions. She sends him to the finest stores and dresses him up. Behind the walls and hedges of Bel Air and Beverly Hills, the rich and beautiful people- people known as ‘street people’ because the streets of Los Angeles are named for them- mingle and exchange gossip. These are not media celebrities; these are the descendants of the oil barons and land developers of yore. Rick is surprised when one young married beauty, Fiona Morgan, takes an interest in him. Could things get any better for him? This is a mystery on the surface, but it’s also statement (a damning one) on class and money. Rick brings up his mixed race heritage frequently, but nothing is ever done with that thread. There is frequent reference to the fact that everyone is very, very white. Rick is almost unbelievably naïve. While I didn’t dislike Rick, I couldn’t manage to like him, either. He’s a narrator that things happen to, without him making much effort. He’s a tool, in a couple of meanings of the word. The other characters… not much to them, and I think that might be intentional. These people have nothing real to them! It is a good depiction of the over the top excesses of the very rich, and what LA history might have been like for those very rich. But I can only give it three stars, because I never found myself really invested in the story.
    • 3/5
      Set in contemporary Los Angeles but harking back in its narrative theme to the older times of the city’s more glamorous past, this slim first-person novel earned three stars out of five for me. Our protagonist- a shiftless Ph.D candidate named Rick Nagano, is hired to help the elderly socialite and patroness of the arts Mrs. W transcribe her journals. Instantly, humble Rick is thrown into the dazzling world of the super-wealthy who remain hidden from view for the likes of him, and us. He’s attending chi-chi events in newly-purchased-for-him outfits (but still has to drive his beat-up Honda) and hobnobbing somewhat hesitantly with the denizens of this rarefied world. At one such event he meets a young woman named Fiona who instantly captures his attention. Now Rick has just been dumped by his girlfriend and has rather a tendency to mope while not focusing on his dissertation. In fact, he mopes so much that he admits the dissertation is more or less dead. But when he meets Fiona it’s as if he comes to life, in some sense, however doomed; as a reader you now feel some relief, some sense of impending events to trigger change in this inertia-loving creature. He’s not an unlikeable guy, mind. It’s just that he becomes so infatuated with the shiny object named Fiona that he loses his already-shaky judgment. Pretty soon he’s doing something pretty darned unethical, just to please her…why? Because she touched his knee and she asked. Poor Rick!From here on out he digs himself in deeper. There is no great mystery to the plot as such, just an event from the past that has particular significance for the intriguing Fiona. In his quest to get her the information she wants Rick crosses the line into betrayal, all the while focusing only on Fiona and a rosy future with her. You almost want to hit him at this point, but the die is cast: all won’t end well, that much is clear, yet the author writes with enough mastery to keep you keeping on. And that sums up my impression of this novel: that the story, while nothing earth-shattering, was handled with restraint and told in unvarnished prose, which lent it a pleasantly unpretentious tone. The telling of stories, the descriptions of untold wealth and what that means, the luxuries and the essential immunity that the rich bestow upon themselves, all came across nicely. If you are familiar with LA the scenes from the city are richly evocative, a most satisfying sensory experience. Would I read more by author Nina Revoyr? Perhaps. I would want to indulge in a novel of heftier proportions, though; A Student of History almost feels like a novella.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to like this book more, however by the time I got to the end I was just frustrated at every character in the story. Richard is hired to transcribe an oil heiress's journals. While doing this she invites him to mingle with high society, who normally wouldn't even look twice. He meets a woman who seems to be very interested in Richard when in reality there is an ulterior motive. Richard is blinded by wanting to fit in, that he breaks his own moral code as well as a contract with the heiress to uncover a secret about her family. This sounded great at first, but personally it took too much time to build up to the secret and then when it was revealed it just wasn't as climactic as I thought it could have been. Overall the story was going in the right direction, but the ending just seemed typical.
    • 5/5
      The author wove the history of early San Francisco into a fascinating story of the blending of mixed racial background with the ultra wealthy, showing how alike humans are in their abilities to be petty, greedy, generous, kind, unforgiving, etc. Rick has to settle into himself and the exhausting efforts he puts forth show how hard it can be, no matter how "bright" you are in the world of academic measurements. There are certain things you have to do to "succeed" in the eyes of others and Rick tries hard to...and ultimately fails, rather spectacularly, but ultimately, he seems to find himself in the end. Almost a page turner because you want so much to find out..what happens next!
    • 4/5
      I received this as an ARC copy from Library Thing. It's features a PHD grad student who comes to work for one of the rich old families of LA. He is transcribing the matriarch's journals. While in her employ he gets taken to various society luncheons and benefits. At some of these he meets a very attractive young woman. Through the twists and turns of the book we learn of a family scandal that is slowly revealed. The main character of the book delves deeper into the scandal at the urging of the young lady. In the end he ends up betraying his patron. At the start of this endeavor on his part I really wanted to dislike the character. He does repent his misdeeds but it does turn his life in a different direction. Very well written and well worth the read. I was thoroughly engrossed in the narrative and kept wandering what would happen next. Again even though I was judging the main character for his misdeeds it still had me wrapped up in where the story was leading.
    • 5/5
      A STUDENT OF HISTORY: A NOVEL by Nina Revoyr.This title is published by Akashic Books and was offered to me for an unbiased and honest review. Thank you.Ms. Revoyr draws many parallels from other literary works, primarily GREAT EXPECTATIONS and THE GREAT GATSBY. I especially like thinking of our main character, Rick Nagano, as a very star-struck Nick Carraway, exposed to the glitterati of LA’s oldest, richest and most ‘entitled’ citizens. “He is a young man of modest means who is navigating a world where he doesn’t belong.” (book jacket)Rick Nagano, a USC graduate student, has hit a ‘brick wall’ in his thesis writing. He is in a stupor, a lethargic state, with no future plans or aspirations. His funding is about to be terminated. His girlfriend has left him. He has few friends and his once energetic and interesting thesis ideas have stagnated. p.11 “It started for the same reason that so many other things did then, because of my need for money.”His oldest USC friend is leaving her job and recommends Rick as her replacement. He is to transcribe diaries and journals of a Mrs. W—. Mrs. W— is literally a multi millionaire from a legendary and historical LA/Southern California family. Rick finds the work easy, interesting and lucrative. He begins to attend parties and charity luncheons with Mrs. — . She ‘dresses’ him and presents him as a companion/assistant of sorts and he steps into a glittering, previously unknown and unimagined world of riches. Our Rick begins to develop aspirations far ‘above his station’.A STUDENT OF HISTORY is a treatise on LA neighborhoods, class (especially class), race, identity, family and secrets. Yes, there is a very big secret.A STUDENT OF HISTORY focuses on just that, history - Rick’s family history, race and class; Mrs.—’s family history; the history of wealth in LA. What is the value of history?p.126 “Being around them was like rubbing shoulders with history.”I am very impressed with the author’s writing; with the book’s readability. It was seamless, detailed, interesting, flowing.A highly recommended read.