Customer Reviews

RYAN SEACREST IS FAMOUS: Stories by Dave Housely

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"RSIF" is a fantastic read with wickedly amusing satire. In his debut, new author Dave Housely has masterfully put together insightful stories with an even more impressive roster of characters. From the very beginning you will enjoy...the writing and the tongue-in-cheek-but-oh-so-accurate truths of our pop culture. This is a clever, well done compilation of short stories that you will find yourself reading over and over again.

The stories in Dave Housley's "Ryan Seacrest is Famous" cut right to the core of our modern American culture with all its emphasis on the surface of appearances, money, and materialism, and he does so in often surprising and always outrageously funny ways (e.g., what would a modern Jack Kerouac look like?). These satirical stories are hard to put down and will make you laugh and nod, and say "Uh huh," over and over again. Definitely, worth a read or two.

Mitchell Waldman, author of Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart

Ryan Seacrest is Famous made me laugh out loud from the first story. While I don't usually read short story anthologies, I picked this one up after a friend recommended it. I read the first three stories the first time I picked it up and finished it over the weekend. It's well-written pop culture satire that will have you nodding in recognition. I've already lent it to a friend.

RSIF takes a look at the sad truths and repercussions of pop culture on society, and wryly reminds us that we love pop, for all its faults, and ours.

Some of Housley's short stories were originally run in the equally eye-opening Barrelhouse anthologies I picked up awhile back-- I am happy to see them and others collected here. His first person accounts are riveting, almost voyeuristic, and I felt the strange urge to look away from the person "talking" in the stories, as if I was getting too much information from an informal aquaintance. But, by the end of each story, they have revealed their souls to the reader, and maybe reminded them that the things that made one uncomfortable are the things they could see themself thinking, doing.

This is a great entry into authorship, and I sense Housley's wit and love/hate with culture, pop or otherwise, could make him a valued mirror on today's society, and some of our guilty pleasures. All one has to do to see his inspirations is watch an episode of American Idol, and feel maybe, just a little jealous-- thinking, "I could do that!"

These are some of the best short stories of 2008! Dave Housely is one of the new stars of independent press fiction. This is a seriously funny look at our idiotically lovable pop culture, beginning with its poster child, American Idol host Ryan Seacrest. I loved it--the most enjoyable short story collection I've read in a while.