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Captive Audience: Stories
 
 
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Captive Audience: Stories [Paperback]

Dave Reidy (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Price: $14.95 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
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Book Description

June 1, 2009
". . . a detailed and seemingly experience-based portrait of what it's like to strut one's stuff onstage--be it at a comedy club or on a basketball court--for all to see and judge. . . . an impressively solid debut . . . ."--Chicago Sun-Times

"In Captive Audience, Dave Reidy collects fictional stories of performers on the fringes of the entertainment world and deftly mixes in cameos from real celebrities (from R.E.M. to Abe Vigoda). This heartfelt collection highlights Reidy's empathy for his characters, and portends a bright future for the author."--David Gutowski, Largehearted Boy 

"Captive Audience is wonderful. These stories--understated, honest and always touching--limn the many small perils that await a young man today on his way to settling in the world. This is an immensely rewarding book."--Scott Turow

"Dave Reidy's stories remind us that even when we're composing our Song of Everyone Else, we're creating a distinctive Song of Ourselves, and continually gathering others into us, in a way that Walt Whitman would recognize, and celebrate."--Jim Shepard

"Dave Reidy's matchless reports from the heart of twenty-first century America, a landscape of technological obsession and performance anxiety (in many forms), are elegant, precise, cool, and funny. Here is a young writer from whom we can expect much in the future."--David Leavitt

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Reidy's youthful collection weaves real-life personas with fictional characters, placing them in settings that reflect the oddities of the humdrum. In Thingless, Arkansas teenager Kyle searches for a thing that may define him at his new high school, but his plan backfires when he takes too much of an interest in the troubled girl next door. In the title story, agoraphobic narrator Jim structures his day around listening to classic comedy records, and the comedy club that opens below his apartment provides unexpected comfort and an unlikely, uncommon friendship. In the ironic, not quite credible but entertaining Dancing Man, Dale, a Chicago organist who plays by ear, lands a gig touring with Sod Off Shotgun, a ska rock band. Although the band doesn't find his organ skills up to par, he finds a niche dancing on stage as a novelty act to energize the crowd. Though the same themes are repeatedly pounded and sounded, and the twists become less fun and surprising later in the book, Reidy is a proficient and reliable performer in his chosen groove. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Back Cover

Francis Ford Coppola, REM, and Abe Vigoda are just a few of the many characters who populate the world of Captive Audience, Dave Reidy's paean to the highs, lows, and everything in-between of being a performer. From the opening story, the award-winning "The Regular," where two lonely music fans bond over a most unusual kind of karaoke, to the final tale, "Dancing Man" about an organ player who gets his big break in the most unexpected way with the band REM, this bittersweet and humorous collection gives voice to those who are driven to perform, no matter the size of the audience.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 197 pages
  • Publisher: Ig Publishing (June 1, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0981504043
  • ISBN-13: 978-0981504049
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,746,800 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dave Reidy's fiction has been published by Granta and his story "The Regular" was chosen by Charles D'Ambrosio as winner of the Emerging Writers Network Short Fiction Contest. Captive Audience, a collection of short stories about performers and Reidy's first book, has been named an Indie Next Notable Book by the American Booksellers Association and a New and Noteworthy Book by Poets & Writers magazine. Captive Audience was published in French translation by Zanzibar Editions. Reidy lives in Chicago. Visit him online at www.davereidy.com

 

Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Read!, August 15, 2009
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This review is from: Captive Audience: Stories (Paperback)
This book is a great collection of short stories! Very well written, each story leaves you wanting to know what happens to the characters after the story is over. Dave Reidy takes you into each character's thoughts and souls so you see exactly what makes them tick and leads you to empathize with each one. I personally can't wait for more to come out of Dave Reidy!
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5.0 out of 5 stars Captive Audience, September 8, 2009
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This review is from: Captive Audience: Stories (Paperback)
Did you ever want to know what it's like to be a genius screen printer? A former NBA star? To play on stage with R.E.M.? To be Abe Vigoda? (Yes, that Abe Vigoda.) Dave Reidy takes you to all these places and more in his new book, Captive Audience. This collection of stories is one of the most diverse, sensitive, and creative I've read in a long time. He lets you feel the isolation and exultation of a Bob-Newhart-obsessed shut in; the pain of freshman-year high school love; the odd contemplation of mortality of an aging actor. This book contains one of my favorite first lines, "Kyle woke up to a terrifying realization; he would start high school in two weeks and he had yet to find a thing," and one of my favorite endings---the closing paragraph of "Dancing Man" is as close to sublime as writing gets anymore. During the title story, my favorite of the collection, at some points I forgot I was reading---that rarely happens to me. These stories are well written, original, and above all, totally entertaining. Do yourself a favor and buy this book.
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5.0 out of 5 stars An Impressive Debut!, August 18, 2009
By 
Ed Giles (Columbus, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Captive Audience: Stories (Paperback)
This collection of short stories from Dave Reidy takes an engaging look at several artists, through their various motivations and fears that inspire and motivate their work. Each character is detailed with emotional precision, including a thorough picture of the relevant craft of the performer, giving the impression that each story could be expanded into novels of their own. The stories are lengthy enough for the reader to develop a relationship with the material without the story beginning to wander, surely no small task for a young writer.

I found "The Regular" and the title story to be particularly rewarding, perhaps because of my affinity for the subject matter (karaoke and stand-up comedy, respectively), but the entire book showcases Mr. Reidy's appreciation for artists and their crafts, as well as the talent we can hope to continue reading in the near future. Well done!
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