Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace (unabridged audio book read by the author and others)

This audiobook is read by Bobby Cannavale, Michael Cerveris, Josh Charles, Will Forte, Malcolm Goodwin, John Krasinski, Christopher Meloni, Chris Messina, Max Minghella, Dennis O'Hare, Lou Taylor Pucci, Ben Shenkman, Joey Slotnick, Corey Stoll, and David Foster Wallace.

The first story on the audiobook of author David Foster Wallace's short-story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, "Death Is Not the End," seems to have been designed as a test to see if the listener is truly prepared for Wallace's fiction. The late author reads, but his narrative is so robotic as to be obnoxious. This is only intensified by the story's merely being a series of digressions (including the author's signature footnotes) with no real destination.

"Forever Overhead" is more successful, primarily because it covers a longer period of time: a 13-year-old's birthday spent at a public pool with his family. Wallace's incisive observations are keen, but his reading once again detracts from the piece -- or maybe it was because a glitch on my copy has caused most of track 5 on disc 1 to be a duplication of a later part of the story that shouldn't have played yet and that I therefore had to listen to twice.

Then there are the titular "Brief Interviews," in which we hear only the answers to a series of unheard questions. (These would be great for audition monologues.) There's the guy who shouts, "Victory to the forces of democratic freedom" upon orgasm; the guy whose "proclivities" originate from his father's need to be restrained from his own violence; a very personal interview with the questioner's boyfriend, who is tired of the questioner's insecurities....

Wallace's talent lies in showing everything, leaving nothing to the imagination, and punctuating it with wry humor and intensifying surprises. (Except in one special case where the final surprise is left up to the listener to figure out.)

...the pot grower who professes to know the difference between a great lover and a great lover; the guy who calls his shriveled arm "the asset"; the son of a washroom attendant; the fellow who argues that rape broadens the mind; the military brat whose supernatural masturbatory fantasies originate from a childhood fascination with Bewitched....

Wallace's fiction oozes pretensions, though Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is never unlistenable. Sometimes it's overlong and feels too much like hard work, but it's entertaining. And every so often there's a true gem, a piece so complete that it's like being rewarded for the effort of the rest. Even the title of "Suicide as a Sort of Present" adds to instead of just summarizing the experience.

...the man who loves everything about women; the duo arguing over how difficult it is to deduce what women want, given what you're working with; the guy who finds a "flake" more fascinating when he hears her rape story. The mere breadth of hideousness contained here is remarkable.

This new, unabridged edition of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men — the portions read by Wallace are taken from a previous, abridged recording — has evidently been produced to tie in with the recent film version adapted and directed by John Krasinski (best known as Jim Halpert from The Office). It includes several cast members performing their roles from the film.

Very Mercenary by Rayo Casablanca

Leigh Tiller, beautiful New York socialite and "billionaire fashionista" (remind you of someone?), is kidnapped by a bear, a monkey, a penguin, and a cat. By chance, she is later noticed in a penthouse window by one Laser Mechanic — ambitious head of the Strategic Art Defense, a group of guerrilla artists (yes, you read that right) — and he is instantly struck by her beauty.

Soon, the life's goal of Laser the asthmatic artist becomes to rescue Leigh and return her to her father, Kip Tiller, at his casino in Las Vegas. (While, of course, spreading his SAD agenda to a wider audience through the inevitable media coverage.)

Trouble is, Kip doesn't want her back. Always one to take advantage of an opportunity, he has therefore hired The Serologist, a sadistic doctor with an ultraloyal assistant named Olivier, to ensure he never has to deal with his daughter again.

What results is Very Mercenary, a road-trip novel of Gumball Rally proportions. Numerous groups, including Momma Gash's "girls" and a preteen street gang called the Black Sultans, eventually head West in pursuit, all rocketing toward an explosive finale that made me laugh and cringe at the same time.

Author Rayo Casablanca (6 Sick Hipsters) draws his characters with broad strokes so they're easily identifiable, and his novel manages to be both extremely clever and cleverly extreme at the same time. He lays on the happy ending a little thick, but everything in Very Mercenary is painted with a wide brush. It's not a great book, but it is a lot of fun, and sometimes that's all you want out of a novel.

Nitpicker's Note: If you want to "liven it up a bit," you want to add "flair." Only add "flare" if by "liven it up" you mean "burn it down."

Books I Couldn't Finish, April 2009 Edition

Bloodlist by P.N. Elrod (unabridged audio book read by Barret Whitener) — This first book in author Elrod's Vampire Files series begins well. Jim Fleming wakes up after his murder to find himself a vampire; he then sets off to find his killer. It's a classic plot (think D.O.A.) with a twist, and Elrod sets up the time (the 1930s — Dracula has just been released) and place (Chicago, the Al Capone era) with the proper amount of detail.

Fleming is a traditional vampire in some ways but not others, and the mix is interesting. Unfortunately, he has a tendency to talk more than do, and his nonaction eventually gets wearying. About a quarter of the way in, I shut off the audio (read by Barrett Whitener) of Bloodlist and never felt the need to start it again. Those more interested in vampires as characters may stick it out, but I was looking for more of the noir revenge tale.

The CEO of the Sofa by P.J. O'Rourke (unabridged audio book read by Dick Hill) — Humorist P.J. O'Rourke wrote perhaps the funniest piece I've ever read ("So Drunk" in Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut), and I was reading Give War a Chance when I met my wife, so I tend to give him more of an opportunity to make me laugh than I would give others of his ilk. But The CEO of the Sofa (at least the parts I got through) was pure disappointment.

This may be in part because of the date of publication: 2001. Timely humor can be terrific when experienced in a timely manner, but anyone who has watched reruns of Saturday Night Live knows that political humor especially grows quickly stale. The pieces in The CEO of the Sofa — including Bill Clinton jokes, a rundown of the presidential candidates of the 2000 election, and a rant on cell phones(?!) — are hardly interesting as anything more than history.