A recent email reminder from Audible sparked a series of discoveries. I had a subscription but wasn’t using it. I’d opened the account some 14 months ago, figuring on filling some gaps in my literary education.
I moved a step closer in April when I bought a pink iPod Nano. This clever little device could store and serve up my audio library while I was at the gym or out for a walk. Then came a stunning development: at Radio Shack, I picked up an adaptor that plays the audio over the car speakers. I know these are everyday tools to some, nothing to get excited about. Except that I am usually the one grabbing the last seat on the iBandwagon. Finally and fully wired, I began to enjoy the ultimate in multitasking: reading and driving.
I immediately determined that the individual doing the reading matters. In addition to having an appealing voice, the narrator, it seems to me, ought to get what the writer is saying or convince the audience that she does. It is a performance after all. Roxana Ortega narrates A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. It’s a book I like, but I noticed myself talking to the recording, correcting Ortega’s inflections: “That’s not the word you want to emphasize.” On opening the Audible account, I’d downloaded Heart of Darkness and A Tale of Two Cities. Conrad and Dickens being indisposed, their books are read by Brits I’ve never heard of, and there’s a drone in their deliveries, not to mention the sound quality in either case isn’t great.
I don't know the audiobook business, but I have to guess that under ideal circumstances publishers prefer audio versions narrated by their authors, lending celebrity, not to mention authenticity, to the listening experience. But a quick scan shows few books in Audible’s collection are read by their writers. I notice, for instance, that actor/comedian and now best-selling novelist Albert Brooks’ 2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America is read by a fellow who sounds faintly robotic and definitely isn’t Brooks. You can listen to a sample. A pity, I think, although I haven’t read (or heard) the book yet. I suppose the publisher understands better than I how 14 hours (translation: 900 highway miles) of Brooks’ potentially grating winey-ness might portend an unfortunate trifecta: reading, riding and road range.
I cannot imagine anyone other than Tina Fey reading her joyfully self-deprecating memoir, Bossypants, and I certainly don’t see how the page-turner’s experience could match the pleasure of Fey’s oral delivery. It’s an impressive event, and it helped shorten a drive from central Vermont to northern New Jersey one day earlier this month. Unlike some audiobooks I’ve experienced, Fey’s narrative occasionally addresses the listener directly and is considerate of the fact that he or she is likely driving or ellipt-ing or involved in some other activity during which reading is not an option. She occasionally refers to photos of herself and suggests checking out, but only when you have a minute, the PDF document Audible includes in the download. (Wait but don’t miss Fey’s circa 1970s shag haircut that evidently doesn’t flatter every face and the “rad” white pantsuit she bought herself in high school.) It’s a subtle thing, this consideration of the listener, but it adds polish to the audiobook, and I’m sure I felt a stronger connection to Fey than I would have reading the print version.
Bossypants is an episodic memoir that touches down on points in Fey’s life from childhood to the present. The section on her dad, Don Fey, is affectionate and moving, and anyone raised by a strong father figure will recognize him. And for any parent of a teenage girl, the chapter on theater camp and its virtue of, well, preserving virtue, sparkles. (I laughed down I-91 from Holyoke, MA, to Hartford, CT, over that section.) Fey devotes long stretches of narrative to her time at Saturday Night Live and, later, the development of her quirky show 30 Rock, where the even-handed management style on both sets of producer Lorne Michaels has left an invaluable and enduring impression. With a memorable scene, Fey credits her friend and fellow comedian Amy Poehler for demonstrating how not to get pushed around in the boardroom. She also provides play by play of her debut as Sarah Palin’s double, a role she wore so convincingly Fox News just this week confused an image of Fey playing Palin for the real ex-governor.
The sections on marriage and parenting drag a bit, and I find the Bossypants cover—Fey’s head and torso Photoshopped with Lou Grant-like arms—fairly disturbing. But I assume that’s the point. For all her comedy and self-deprecation, Fey is sharing what she’s learned during her rise in the entertainment business. Not surprisingly, it isn’t all Vogue fashion shoots and free all-you-can-eat fare at the Kraft table. For a woman forging a path in television comedy, a world heavily occupied by arrogant Harvard boys and mostly-male improv geeks, there requires some cobbling together of incongruous parts, not to mention an off-kilter sense of humor.
