The Man Who Haunted Himself

by Ishmael Reed

Dr. Douglass Garnett is about to break all the rules to save himself—and push mankind into the future.

He’s one of America’s most brilliant neuroscientists. He’s also Black and dying of cancer. But he has a plan—a brain transfer. He’ll put his gifted mind into the body of Sammy Sturgeon, a White high school football star who was on the rise until a touchdown collision left him brain-dead.

He convinces his co-conspirator, Dr. Dino Battaglia, to help him with the forbidden procedure. Douglass wakes up in Sammy’s White, athletic body, with his new family and legions of fans weeping at his miraculous recovery.

As Douglass starts his life anew at Junipero Prep, complications ensue. There’s the messy breakup with Sammy’s blonde cheerleader girlfriend; then there’s an even messier relationship with his high school science teacher, Marie. Before he can win the Nobel Prize—or be charged with murder—Douglass’ transplant will force him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about race, progress, and life in America.

The Man Who Haunted Himself is a new sci-fi-horror classic from legendary author Ishmael Reed, who The New Yorker dubbed “America’s most fearless satirist”. Reed continues the literary tradition of California noir established by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and issues a new entry into the genre he helped launch, Afrofuturism. This hilariously subversive Audible Original is expertly narrated by Adam Lazarre-White (Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal).

Does the body or the brain make the man? Listen and find out.

Genres: Audiobook, Fiction, Novels

Audible Audio

Published January 1, 2022

About the author

Ishmael Scott Reed is an American poet, essayist, and novelist. A prominent African-American literary figure, Reed is known for his satirical works challenging American political culture, and highlighting political and cultural oppression.

Reed has been described as one of the most controversial writers. While his work has often sought to represent neglected African and African-American perspectives, his energy and advocacy have centered more broadly on neglected peoples and perspectives irrespective of their cultural origins.

Reviews

[Tiff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was expecting to hate this based off other reviews but when you keep and open mind and balance the many different aspects of the story it really was quite entertaining. the end lost me a little bit but overall it was good for a short story.

[Jeff Koeppen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think this may be one of the worst science fiction book I've ever read/ listened to.

"The Man" referenced in the title is Douglas Garnett a young 30-something neuroscientist who finds out he has terminal cancer so he and his team decide to transplant his brain in to the body of a white (Douglas is black) high school football star named Sammy Sturgeon who is brain dead. So they convince Sammy's parents to let them take the body for "tests" (no permission asked to remove his brain) and find and old hospital which is about to be razed to perform the brain transfer at. What? There are fully functional abandoned hospitals out there that a person can break in to? The surgery is successful of course and Douglas begins to live his life as a high school football player with the Sturgeon family.

The white football player is a no-good racist bully who is dating the most beautiful girl in the high school who already aborted two of Sammy's babies. The Sturgeon family is a bunch of racists and the dad is richer than rich due to illegal gun sales to blacks. The racist local cop is a best friend who comes over for dinner and spews racist comments. Every single scenario in this book has racial overtones to it and is over-the-top unbelievable. The characters are cardboard thin and are all cartoonish stereotypes. Even Garnett's family is unpleasant. There wasn't a likeable person in this thing. I guess the point of this was that we were suppose to root for Sammy as Garnett changes him from the inside. This whole thing was so implausible - even for science fiction.

The aforementioned story was about two-thirds of this. The other thirds consisted of monologues spouted by the various characters about things having to do with racism: the treatment of Kaepernick, death of George Floyd, the racist "Star Spangled Banner" and its racist author Francis Scott Key, gentrification, white violence against asians, racist police, CRT, COVID and race, and other topics having to do with race relations I can't remember.

I've giving this one star because of the quality of the science fiction story.

[Lk · Rating 2 out of 5]

It may sound like an oxymoron, but Adam Lazarre White's crispy and buttery narration was the saving grace of this audiobook. I was able to push through mainly because of his delicious voice acting. My favorites are his characterization of the main character's grandmother (a feisty, can-see-through-your-BS black woman) and the school principal (a posh British guy).

I wish the author focused only on one or two story trajectories, probably more on the moral dilemma of what the scientist did. I honestly didn't care much about the people in the host body's life, which is the bulk of this messy audiobook! There was a bullied Asian kid (whom he identified later as a Filipino) and while I appreciate the inclusion of the history of Hukbalahap, I didn't like that the narrator butchered the Filipino words (his only blunder, narration-wise). I also feel that the inclusion of that story was unnecessary and just made the whole ordeal messier.

Ishmael Reed's story could have benefited an editor (if there isn't one), or a better editor (if there is already one).

Listened and reviewed Jan 13, 2023

[Antipoet · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think the problem is twofold - there are two different main characters (the sociopathic mad scientist who murders cats &c and the intelligent thoughtful man who cares about the plight of the oppressed), and the twain might be in the same body but they don't actually meet.

The other problem is more of a complaint about genre. There's a gestured-at plot where he's told he will be haunted by his body and...isn't ever really.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first work I've read of Ishmael Reed and I just came across it randomly.

It's a bit of a crazy and provocative story but not an unpleasant read.

It immediately reminded me of "The Spook Who Sat by the Door".

As read this in January 2023 and it was published in November 2022 so the political observations and social satire sound very current.

I also enjoyed the allusion to Mary Ellen Pleasant, who I'd just heard about recently and is not that well known.

Overall, I found it a bit over the top and silly, but also pretty funny and enjoyable.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Man Who Haunted Himself is a story by Ishmael Reed. This review is referring to the Audible Plus Audiobook edition, which was narrated by Adam Lazzare White. It’s about a character who begins life as a smart kid. As he grows up, he begins doing science experiments, including wanting to perform a brain transplant between a neighbour kid and a cat. Later on in life, he has become a scientist and has continued his brain research. However, he has found out that he is about to die because of cancer. So, he suggests to a team member that he wants his own brain to be transplanted into that of a teenager who is in a coma. When the scientist wakes up in his new body, he finds himself needing to adapt to his new life. There are strong racial themes; he was a black man, but in his new body, he is a white teenager, who was racist, and has a racist father. He also pays visits to his old family, and tries to find out what they thought of their now deceased relative.

I don’t know how to put my feelings about this book into words. I’ll begin by saying that I like the premise of the book. I think the author had an interesting idea. I appreciate the science fiction aspects of it, and I like the idea behind the story. I think the author has good ideas in presenting these social scenarios. Such as the ones where the main character is adapting to his new life, and finds himself having to deal with the fall out of how the footballer treated people, such as the bullying he dealt out to other students. However, the story itself falls flat to me. I feel like there isn’t much depth to a lot of the characters. For example, with the main character, Dr. Douglass Garnett. At a variety of points, it feels like the author doesn’t know how to show that this character is smart by actions; instead, the author takes a lot of time just saying that he’s smart, while listing off accomplishments. And the same for other characters, a lot of them feel like they lack depth to them. The emotions and actions of each character feel really flat, and a lot of the actions of characters feel off. For example, the first chapter gives a basic history of the main character. But it feels like the author is just listing off a variety of aspects about him, rather than it being much of a story or there being scenes to it.

Also, I feel like there’s a huge air of hypocrisy to the Garnett character, post-transplant. Under the pretence of pretending to be the footballer, it felt like he was often trying to be like the footballer. He generally didn’t try to stop his footballer friends from bullying, he simply let it happen. In my understanding, his footballer body was essentially the leader of the bullies, so I feel like he could have easily stopped the others from bullying. To be honest, it felt like he was passively responsible for a lot of this bullying; by choosing not to intervene and stop it, even though he probably would have been able to stop it.

And, to be honest, he wasn’t a very good person to begin with. One of the most stand out moments from his childhood is when he takes a neighbouring kid hostage, with the intention of switching the kid’s brain with that of a cat (it seems like he killed that cat; to remove the brain). Later on, to save his own life from the cancer that is killing him, he has his scientific team transfer his brain into the braindead body of a footballer. He and his science partner both acknowledge that they oughtn’t be doing it, and that it would not be allowed. They try to hide the surgery from a lot of people; they have no permission to do it. Even after the surgery, the family of the teenager have no idea that it had happened, so it’s obvious that there was no family permission for them to do the brain transplant. So, the main character isn’t a very likeable person, to be blunt.

Though, having said that, I feel like the author has presented some important themes. One of the primary talking points of the book is racism. When he was in his own body, it was the body of a black man; after the brain transplant, he is in the body of a white man. The doctor thinks a lot about the way he was treated growing up, versus how he is now treated as the high school footballer. He finds out about the way this footballer had bullied those around him, especially people of colour. And he also takes notice of the people of colour around him, and how they’re treated; as well as think about the way members of his new family are racist and have strong ties to racism.

As for the writing itself… I feel like the author sometimes had a tendency to drift away from the primary plot; with long spiels of background characters, who ended up having very little relevance to the plot. In that way, the author focuses so much on irrelevant details. For example, the book is meant to be about the genius of the main character, and how he’s this brilliant scientist. Yet, there’s very little display of his actual genius or the science behind it; there’s not much real plot points dedicated to the research, or the brain transplant. I feel like the book loses the science fiction aspects, to focus more on the societal aspects and political commentary. While I feel like the societal aspects and political commentary do play an important role in the theme of the book, I wish the author hadn’t chosen to put the science fiction bits of the book in such a background role. And I feel like way too many of the characters are just stereotypes, with no real character development to them.

I think that the narrator did a pretty good job. The speaking was well paced. The character vocal work was done pretty well, and the narrator was able to give appropriate tones for each of them, depending on the situation. I think they did a pretty good job.

Overall… I wanted to like the book. Primarily because I liked the premise of it, and the ideas behind it. However, I feel like I didn’t really enjoy it. My main critique is that I think it could have had better writing behind how the characters were presented. The author has a habit of simply listing aspects about them, rather than showing us what they’re like. So, it makes it feel like a lot of the characters are very one-note and don’t have much personality to them. And I feel like the author could have developed the story a lot better. Considering the main character is meant to be some sort of genius, there’s very little science or science fiction aspects to the book, and the stuff with his science team happened in the background. The main character was shown to be a pretty bad person, considering his lack of ethics and doing really important aspects of his science work without consent from appropriate parties. So, I felt it difficult to like him. Again, I think the author had good ideas behind the story, with the new perspective this character faces and the themes of racism and the social commentary of it. But I think the book could have been better written. But that’s all just my opinion; your own opinion may vary.

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a difficult book—interesting but not truly likeable. The problems start with the main character, Garnett, who is something of a sociopath interested only in money. He’s also a genius with amazing scientific gifts, but he has no ethical compass at all to help him use his talents in a responsible way. For example, as a child he kidnaps a neighbor, ties him up, and is preparing to try and switch his brain with a cat’s. That experience (and the boy was not playing, the cat brain had already been removed) should have led to him being institutionalized and getting serious help, but his mother merely bribes the parents of the other child so that her son will not suffer any consequences. It should not surprise the reader, therefore, that when the boy grows up, he decides to save his own life by having his brain transferred into the basically healthy body of a high school football player who is brain dead but otherwise physically okay. He doesn’t bother to get anyone’s permission. He just acts as he wants to do.

Then the story gets even more difficult. For Garnett, an African American man, is now inside the body of a white bully who is a member of the most racist white supremacist family living in America’s most racist white supremist community. There is no subtlety here—just the sort of offensive interactions that you see in civil rights documentaries when Governor Bull Connor is setting the dogs loose on protestors and swearing that blacks will never enter white schools. It’s completely over the top and actually diminishes the opportunity Reed is trying to create to discuss some important issues in our society. And keep in mind that the voice through which he is trying to make the case that racism is wrong (something every American should agree with) is someone he purposely made thoroughly dislikable.

There was one scene that I found touching as it unfolded. Garnett talks a young man out of bring a gun into their school and killing a bunch of people. But when thinking back on the scene, I had to ask myself, why did Garnett care? It was out of character for this utterly self-absorbed person to put himself out without some profit for himself. So the best scene in the book was actually poorly written.

[Ben]

DNF at ~40%

I was intrigued when this got mentioned in a roundup of (of all things) podcasts to look for in Fall 2022 from Vulture, even though this was an Audible original. If an audiobook was getting included there, it seemed to indicate something happening in terms of audio fiction that ventured a listen, even though audiobooks aren't really my thing.

The description sounded like the kind of SF-with-a-social message novella/short story I'd read, so I made a note for myself and picked it up when it came out. I was expecting something more fully produced (given that this was included in a podcast roundup of all things), but it's just a straightforward audiobook - I'm not sure why this is getting put out as audio only, though that may just be a publishing world thing. The story feels like it needed an additional round of editing - I can see what it's going for, but it's so wordy in the way it's getting there, in a way that's particularly noticeable because of the audiobook format - the narrator is hitting their points time after time after time. I tapped out because I can see where the story is going (and how the main character is "haunting" themself), and it's a bit of a drag to get there. Hopefully this gets published as an actual book/e-book so I can skim the rest to see if I was right.

[Martin Bakner · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a review of the Audible edition:

The premise was intriguing, but the story suffers from a combination of what's there and what isn't.

The author loves to get deep into details. Really loves it. Really, REALLY loves it. Do we honestly need to have exquisitely particular descriptions of what a person is wearing? Or the style of carving on a table's legs? And yet, practically no details about the medical procedure that is the heart of the story.

Then we have immense gaps in time, as if the author couldn't explain how his protagonist could possibly get from Point A to Point B in life, so he just ignores the passage of time.

Yes, it's a short tale. But it lacks cohesiveness.


As for the narrator, his monotone gives nothing to assist the reader's efforts to slog through to the finish. His Shatneresque speech pattern - rather, his Kevin-Pollak-as-William-Shatner-as-Captain-Kirk phrasing - makes it all but impossible to stay focused on a story that lacks focus in the first place. (Note: Lazzare-White does manage to make one character sound entertaining, though her appearance is too short and too easily forgotten to salvage the performance.) He seems to just be phoning it in.


I had hoped for more.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good, actually. I didn't have high hopes since the writer is well into his eighties now, and who's doing their best work at that age? It's my.... I think my third book but him. It's short and has a very basic story about a black neuroscientist who transplnts his own brain into the body of a much younger, much healthier white athlete who has had some sort of concussion or brain injury. Hilarity ensues. Well, not quite, but lots of interactions ensue, serving as an excuse for the writer to tag various current concerns about Covid, CRT and so on, and give his opinion on them through the mouths of his characters. It doesn't sound good, does it? And yet, I enjoyed it. I think I liked it more than "Yellow Back Radio Broke Down", which I'd been told was his best book, but to be fair it's as old as I am so maybe it's no surprise that it feels a bit dated. I'm not really steeped in cowboy literature and all the cultural reference points might as well have been from a different planet as far as I'm concerned. Um... I seem to have got off track and started reviewing a different book. Maybe I should stop.

[Evan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sacrificing good storytelling for political commentary basically from the word go.

A sociopath (verging on psychopath) scientist transplants his brain into the body of a dying high-schooler who happens to be a member of one of the most cartoonishly racist families ever put to page. Suddenly this man develops a conscience of improbable depth and from there what could have been a potentially interesting sci-fi horror story devolves into unending heavy-handed commentary on US race relations plagued by long strings of statistics and dry narration. The plot points that are wrapped up feel like they were tied up only so that it could be called a cohesive story but it feels like the author would have been happier writing an essay. The phrase "bait-and-switch" comes to mind and that's pretty much all that needs to be said.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

On many levels, I struggled with this. I pitied the main character in his disillusioned attempts to save himself. I struggled vastly with the discrimination and overall hatred throughout. The one thing that saved the experience was Adam Lazzare-White's magnificent narration. Adam brought depth to Garnett's character, and I think had this been a paperback version I would have quit in the first quarter. For my full review, please see Cobbett's Books.

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting concepts and points—but feels more like polemic wrapped in speculative fiction than a fully realized story (if it weren't for Ishmael Reed's history and reputation, it would have a much harder time to find publication by an "unknown writer"). Takes quite a turn! But I'm glad I listened and learned.

[Westley Montgomery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful writing! The first bit of the main character's history is also compelling. Unfortunately, the present-day narrative is disconnected from the specificity of its geographic and temporal reality so much that I was at times unsure if this was a time-travel novella. The author sadly has no idea what the lives of young people today are like, much less young people in the Bay Area.

[LaTina Steele · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked the idea of this book and the overall story, but I didn't love the long diatribes (those concepts would have been better demonstrated with actions in the story or more natural dialogue). I listened to this as an audiobook, and the narration was really slow (even on 1.2x speed) and choppy.

[Copper · Rating 3 out of 5]

It didn't seem like the main character was the same person through the book however I think it was supposed to be like that to portray the shift in mindset when placed into a culturally different body. Still an interesting read

[Serahserah · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is clear a certain demographic is giving this book low ratings and reviews due to the topic evolving around race and critical race theory. However, when you strip away the sci-fi element of this tale the social aspects of race, psychology and toxic masculinity hidden beneath are incredible.

[Mike Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

An ok story idea that is overwhelmed by some of the most left wing nuttery you’ll ever read. Mix all out race hate with the logic and facts of Farrakhan and you’ve got this book. How do people with this big a chip on their shoulder get through the day? Fragility indeed.

[Chardonnay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. But unfortunately it was downright awful. A black man who has his brain placed inside of a bigoted white teenage football star should have been much more riveting than what this was. Boring, ignorant, without true cause. Never again.

[Matthew Templeton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Should be titled "Rhetoric with a choppy plot mixed in". The storyline is a hit and miss with chunks of every liberal ideology you could fit into a short story. The story is just a filler in-between each point of Rhetoric.

[Colleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book and it’s description gives a sense of much more than is actually delivered

[Krista Middleton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book…but didn’t. It was all over the place! Brain swap surgery, crazy families, Covid, racism. Too much randomness to form a main plot. I do not recommend. -KM

[Ashley Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book makes some good points, but seems to do so at the expense of the story.

[Autumn]

Interesting

[Patrina Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was ok. Interesting listen just feel like a lot was left out 🤷🏽‍♀️

[Denis Pérez · Rating 3 out of 5]

WTF?
I don't know what to say. I think I need a moment to reflect about what just happened.
Loved the concept by the way.