
54 Miles
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $7.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Leonard Pitts Jr.
About this listen
Young Adam, who has been raised in Harlem by his white father, George, and Black mother, Thelma, goes back to his parents' home state of Alabama to participate in the voting rights campaign, only to be brutalized in the Bloody Sunday melee. He is still recovering from this when he is struck a heavy emotional blow, learning for the first time—and in the cruelest way imaginable—of a family secret that sends him spiraling and plunging further into danger. To save him, and any hope for their relationship, Thelma is drawn back, for the first time in twenty years, to the South she both hates and fears, and to a reckoning that may result in an incalculable loss.
Meanwhile, Thelma's brother Luther is also spiraling, but in a different way. Forty-two years after his parents were lynched before his eyes, and twenty years after the man who led the lynch mob walked out of court a free man, Luther has just made a shocking discovery. He's found the murderer, Floyd Bitters, helpless and enfeebled in a rest home—unable to move or even to speak. The old man is literally at Luther's mercy. And Luther, who has never overcome this trauma that defined his life, is suddenly forced to relive it all again as he grapples with the awful question of what justice now demands.
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Button Man
- By: Andrew Gross
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Andrew Gross delivers a stirring story of a Jewish family brought together in the dawn of the women's garment business and torn apart by the birth of organized crime in New York City in the 1930s. Morris, Sol, and Harry Rabishevsky grew up poor and rough in a tiny flat on the Lower East Side, until the death of their father thrust them into having to fend for themselves. Morris, the youngest, dropped out of school at 12 and apprenticed himself to a garment cutter in a clothing factory; Sol headed to accounting school; but Harry, scarred by a family tragedy, fell in with a gang of thugs as a teenager.
-
-
Excellent historical suspense HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
- By shelley on 09-19-18
By: Andrew Gross
-
The Last Thing You Surrender
- By: Leonard Pitts Jr.
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 20 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pulitzer-winning journalist and best-selling author (Freeman) Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s new historical novel is a great American tale of race and war, following three characters from the Jim Crow South as they face the enormous changes World War II triggers in the United States. An affluent white marine survives Pearl Harbor at the cost of a black messman's life only to be sent, wracked with guilt, to the Pacific and taken prisoner by the Japanese.
-
-
Frustratingly one dimensional
- By Shobewon on 05-20-19
-
The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs
- A Novel
- By: Katherine Howe
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Connie Goodwin is an expert on America’s fractured past with witchcraft. A young, tenure-track professor in Boston, she’s earned career success by studying the history of magic in colonial America - especially women’s home recipes and medicines - and by exposing society's threats against women fluent in those skills. But beyond her studies, Connie harbors a secret: She is the direct descendant of a woman tried as a witch in Salem, an ancestor whose abilities were far more magical than the historical record shows.
-
-
Good!
- By CKD on 07-24-19
By: Katherine Howe
-
Devil Makes Three
- A Novel
- By: Ben Fountain
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Haiti, 1991. When a violent coup d’état leads to the fall of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, American expat Matt Amaker is forced to abandon his idyllic, beachfront scuba business. With the rise of a brutal military dictatorship and an international embargo threatening to destroy even the country’s most powerful players, some are looking to gain an advantage in the chaos–and others are just looking to make it through another day.
-
-
Brilliant Novel about US Policy & its Effects
- By Jason on 10-08-23
By: Ben Fountain
-
Heads You Win
- By: Jeffrey Archer
- Narrated by: Richard Armitage
- Length: 15 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From an early age, it is clear that Alexander Karpenko is destined to lead his countrymen. But when his father is assassinated by the KGB for defying the state, Alexander and his mother will have to escape Russia if they hope to survive. At the docks, they have an irreversible choice: board a container ship bound for America or one bound for Great Britain. Alexander leaves the choice to a toss of a coin....
-
-
The twists earn 5 stars
- By Wayne on 11-15-18
By: Jeffrey Archer
-
The Ancient Nine
- A Novel
- By: Ian K. Smith
- Narrated by: Brad Sanders
- Length: 15 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spencer Collins thinks his life at Harvard will be all about basketball and pre-med. The friends he’s made when he hits the storied ivy-clad campus from a very different life in urban Chicago are a happy bonus. But Spencer is about to be introduced to the most mysterious inner sanctum of the inner sanctum: to his surprise, he’s in the running to be “punched” for one of Harvard’s elite final clubs. As Spencer is considered for membership for the Delphic Club, he’s plunged not only into the secret world of male privilege, but also a century-old club mystery.
-
-
DO NOT PURCHASE THE AUDIO BOOK
- By CHG on 11-03-18
By: Ian K. Smith
-
Button Man
- By: Andrew Gross
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Andrew Gross delivers a stirring story of a Jewish family brought together in the dawn of the women's garment business and torn apart by the birth of organized crime in New York City in the 1930s. Morris, Sol, and Harry Rabishevsky grew up poor and rough in a tiny flat on the Lower East Side, until the death of their father thrust them into having to fend for themselves. Morris, the youngest, dropped out of school at 12 and apprenticed himself to a garment cutter in a clothing factory; Sol headed to accounting school; but Harry, scarred by a family tragedy, fell in with a gang of thugs as a teenager.
-
-
Excellent historical suspense HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
- By shelley on 09-19-18
By: Andrew Gross
-
The Last Thing You Surrender
- By: Leonard Pitts Jr.
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 20 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pulitzer-winning journalist and best-selling author (Freeman) Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s new historical novel is a great American tale of race and war, following three characters from the Jim Crow South as they face the enormous changes World War II triggers in the United States. An affluent white marine survives Pearl Harbor at the cost of a black messman's life only to be sent, wracked with guilt, to the Pacific and taken prisoner by the Japanese.
-
-
Frustratingly one dimensional
- By Shobewon on 05-20-19
-
The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs
- A Novel
- By: Katherine Howe
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Connie Goodwin is an expert on America’s fractured past with witchcraft. A young, tenure-track professor in Boston, she’s earned career success by studying the history of magic in colonial America - especially women’s home recipes and medicines - and by exposing society's threats against women fluent in those skills. But beyond her studies, Connie harbors a secret: She is the direct descendant of a woman tried as a witch in Salem, an ancestor whose abilities were far more magical than the historical record shows.
-
-
Good!
- By CKD on 07-24-19
By: Katherine Howe
-
Devil Makes Three
- A Novel
- By: Ben Fountain
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Haiti, 1991. When a violent coup d’état leads to the fall of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, American expat Matt Amaker is forced to abandon his idyllic, beachfront scuba business. With the rise of a brutal military dictatorship and an international embargo threatening to destroy even the country’s most powerful players, some are looking to gain an advantage in the chaos–and others are just looking to make it through another day.
-
-
Brilliant Novel about US Policy & its Effects
- By Jason on 10-08-23
By: Ben Fountain
-
Heads You Win
- By: Jeffrey Archer
- Narrated by: Richard Armitage
- Length: 15 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From an early age, it is clear that Alexander Karpenko is destined to lead his countrymen. But when his father is assassinated by the KGB for defying the state, Alexander and his mother will have to escape Russia if they hope to survive. At the docks, they have an irreversible choice: board a container ship bound for America or one bound for Great Britain. Alexander leaves the choice to a toss of a coin....
-
-
The twists earn 5 stars
- By Wayne on 11-15-18
By: Jeffrey Archer
-
The Ancient Nine
- A Novel
- By: Ian K. Smith
- Narrated by: Brad Sanders
- Length: 15 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spencer Collins thinks his life at Harvard will be all about basketball and pre-med. The friends he’s made when he hits the storied ivy-clad campus from a very different life in urban Chicago are a happy bonus. But Spencer is about to be introduced to the most mysterious inner sanctum of the inner sanctum: to his surprise, he’s in the running to be “punched” for one of Harvard’s elite final clubs. As Spencer is considered for membership for the Delphic Club, he’s plunged not only into the secret world of male privilege, but also a century-old club mystery.
-
-
DO NOT PURCHASE THE AUDIO BOOK
- By CHG on 11-03-18
By: Ian K. Smith
-
My Monticello
- Fiction
- By: Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
- Narrated by: Aja Naomi King, January LaVoy, Landon Woodson, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a daring and fierce debut work of fiction - the likes of which comes along once in a generation - Virginia’s landscapes, emblems, and Thomas Jefferson’s historic plantation set the stage for a cast of unforgettable characters fighting for their right to exist in America. Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging.
-
-
WOW, That was amazing.
- By Kindle Customer on 12-21-24
-
Harold
- By: Steven Wright
- Narrated by: Steven Wright
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the outside, Harold is an average seven-year-old third grader growing up in the 1960s. Bored by school. Crushing on a girl. Likes movies and baseball—especially the hometown Boston Red Sox. Enjoys spending time with his grandfather. But inside Harold’s mind, things are a lot more complex and unusual. His thoughts come to him as birds flying through a small rectangle in the middle of his brain. He visits an outdoor cafe on the moon and is invited aboard a spaceship by famed astronomer Carl Sagan.
-
-
Yes, Harold?
- By DC333 on 06-27-23
By: Steven Wright
-
The Mercies
- By: Kiran Millwood Hargrave
- Narrated by: Jessie Buckley
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vardø must fend for themselves. Three years later, a stranger arrives on their shore. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa.
-
-
The Mercies is a Strong and Moving Story, Not to be Missed
- By The Village Witch on 02-29-20
-
Haven Point
- A Novel
- By: Virginia Hume
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sweeping debut novel about the generations of a family that spends summers in a seaside enclave on Maine's rocky coastline, for fans of Elin Hilderbrand, Beatriz Williams, and Sarah Blake.
-
-
Great story written and read
- By Beeb on 06-25-21
By: Virginia Hume
-
The Two-Family House
- A Novel
- By: Linda Cohen Loigman
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brooklyn, 1947: In the midst of a blizzard, in a two-family brownstone, two babies are born minutes apart to two women. They are sisters by marriage, with an impenetrable bond forged before and during that dramatic night; but as the years progress, small cracks start to appear, and their once deep friendship begins to unravel. No one knows why, and no one can stop it. One misguided choice; one moment of tragedy. Heartbreak wars with happiness and almost but not quite wins.
-
-
A Two Family Saga
- By Sara on 08-17-17
-
Meet Me at the Museum
- A Novel
- By: Anne Youngson
- Narrated by: Helen Lloyd, Lars Knudsen
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brought together by a shared fascination with the Tollund Man, subject of Seamus Heaney’s famous poem, Anders Larsen, an urbane man of facts, and Tina Hopgood begin writing letters to one another. And from their vastly different worlds, they find they have more in common than they could have imagined. As they open up to one another about their lives, an unexpected friendship blooms. But then Tina’s letters stop coming, and Anders is thrown into despair. How far are they willing to go to write a new story for themselves?
-
-
Audible books
- By Joe B on 09-15-19
By: Anne Youngson
-
Wolf at the Table
- By: Adam Rapp
- Narrated by: Paul Sparks
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As late summer 1951 descends on Elmira, New York, Myra Larkin, thirteen, the oldest child of a large Catholic family, meets a young man she believes to be Mickey Mantle. He chats her up at a local diner and gives her a ride home. The matter consumes her until later that night, when a triple homicide occurs just down the street, opening a specter of violence that will haunt the Larkins for half a century.
-
-
extraordinary writing.
- By michelle martinez on 05-23-24
By: Adam Rapp
-
Libertie
- By: Kaitlyn Greenidge
- Narrated by: Channie Waites
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Coming of age as a free-born Black girl in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, Libertie Sampson was all too aware that her purposeful mother, a practicing physician, had a vision for their future together: Libertie would go to medical school and practice alongside her. But Libertie, drawn more to music than science, feels stifled by her mother’s choices and is hungry for something else - is there really only one way to have an autonomous life? And she is constantly reminded that, unlike her mother who can pass, Libertie has skin that is too dark.
-
-
absolutely loved ir
- By kimberly eisner on 04-07-21
-
Two-Step Devil
- By: Jamie Quatro
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2014, in Lookout Mountain, Alabama, the Prophet—a seventy-year-old man who paints his visions—lives off the grid in a cabin near the Georgia border. While scrounging for materials at the local scrapyard, the Prophet sees a car pull up to an abandoned gas station. In the back seat is a teenage girl with zip ties on her wrists, a girl he realizes he must rescue from her current life. Her name is Michael, and the Prophet feels certain that she is a messenger sent by God to take his end-time warnings to the White House.
-
-
Surreal
- By Nan on 01-20-25
By: Jamie Quatro
-
Ridgeline
- A Novel
- By: Michael Punke
- Narrated by: Tatanka Means, Amanda Stribling, Michael Punke
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1866, with the country barely recovered from the Civil War, new war breaks out on the western frontier - a clash of cultures between a young, ambitious nation and the Native tribes who have lived on the land for centuries. Colonel Henry Carrington arrives in Wyoming’s Powder River Valley to lead the US Army in defending the opening of a new road for gold miners and settlers. Carrington intends to build a fort in the middle of critical hunting grounds, the home of the Lakota.
-
-
Disappointed.
- By Monnie B. on 06-19-21
By: Michael Punke
-
A Nearly Normal Family
- By: M. T. Edvardsson, Rachel Wilson-Broyles - translator
- Narrated by: Emily Watson, Georgia Maguire, Richard Armitage
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eighteen-year-old Stella Sandell stands accused of the brutal murder of a man almost 15 years her senior. She is an ordinary teenager from an upstanding local family. What reason could she have to know a shady businessman, let alone to kill him? Stella’s father, a pastor, and mother, a criminal defense attorney, find their moral compasses tested as they defend their daughter, while struggling to understand why she is a suspect.
-
-
Interesting storytelling
- By Jenn on 07-02-19
By: M. T. Edvardsson, and others
-
The Guest Book
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Blake
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
- Length: 17 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No. It is a simple word, uttered on a summer porch in 1936. And it will haunt Kitty Milton for the rest of her life. Kitty and her husband, Ogden, are both from families considered the backbone of the country. But this refusal will come to be Kitty’s defining moment, and its consequences will ripple through the Milton family for generations. For while they summer on their island in Maine, anchored as they are to the way things have always been, the winds of change are beginning to stir.
-
-
Reader mispronounced too many words
- By Catherine Newton on 05-19-19
By: Sarah Blake
What listeners say about 54 Miles
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Eve Castle
- 02-23-25
Unforgettable story…
Listened to this extraordinary story, 54 Miles, written and read by author Leonard Pitts, Jr. This novel is a standalone sequel to his novel The Last Thing You Surrender. This book takes you forward 20-years into 1965 Alabama with the march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge as part of the historical backstory.
I’m not sure how he does it, but author Pitts allows us, not only to step into the lives, but to feel the character’s burdens, fears and pain. We meet Thelma, her brother Luther, her son Adam, and her husband George. Lots of family dynamics of a mixed race couple during a time when that was still illegal in the South.
One can’t help but have their heart touched and emotion ignited throughout this story. As I listened to 54 Miles many threads between both novels made me think I had seen the “movie.” There is no movie! Pitts characters and scenes are so vibrant you feel you are there. Strongly recommend to those interested in southern Alabama history during the 60s, Martin Luther King, the Selma Bloody Sunday, or any part of history leading up to the march over the bridge. A great family story with all the good and the tough. Pitts knows how to keep truth inside his fiction. His characters are believable because they are not perfect. I loved this novel. 5 stars easy.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sandra W.
- 03-01-25
This Wrecked Me!
I have to give Pitts a break for now! He is too good and the feeling too great. I held my breath the entire book. I was a silent onlooker and I mourned, rejoiced, exhaled out of relief with every scene I was present for. The Last Thing You Surrender and it's sequel 54 Miles is some of the best writing I've experienced.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!