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Brief Interviews with Hideous Men Audiobook
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(3.00) - 9,781 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
In this thought-provoking and playful short story collection, David Foster Wallace nudges at the boundaries of fiction with inimitable wit and seductive intelligence.
Wallace's stories present a world where the bizarre and the banal are interwoven and where hideous men appear in many guises. Among the stories are 'The Depressed Person,' a dazzling and blackly humorous portrayal of a woman's mental state; 'Adult World,' which reveals a woman's agonized consideration of her confusing sexual relationship with her husband; and 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men,' a dark, hilarious series of imagined interviews with men on the subject of their relations with women.
Wallace delights in leftfield observation, mining the absurd, the surprising, and the illuminating from every situation. This collection will enthrall DFW fans, and provides a perfect introduction for new readers.
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"I gave this book four stars, yet DFW is one of my favorite authors so I'm a bit biased. It is really more like a three star book. The writing, as always, is hyperkinetic and sometimes I can almost hear it sizzle. But the subject matter is that same old postmodern stalwart: self-reflection. He does do some wonderful things with this idea and almost sheds some new light on them but in the end its just the writing, and not the subject matter, that let me enjoy the book. I recommend the stories: "the devil is a busy man" (the first one), "datum centurio", "octet", "Brief Interview #20, New Haven, CT" (the last story in the book)."
— Jesse (4 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
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“Essential listening for Wallace fans.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“Brilliant…bitingly funny…wildly imaginative.”
— Salon -
“A supersonic delight, a full-scale harassment of the short story form…David Foster Wallace is one badass fiction writer.”
— LA Weekly -
“A strikingly original collection…Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is meant to interrogate the reader, to elicit fresh responses to horrors that have lost their edge in the age of information overload…It displays a range of intellect and talent that is unseemly for any one writer to have, let alone show off.”
— Time -
“An astonishing collection…A brutally magnificent book…Not least among David Foster Wallace’s many accomplishments is his almost single-handed rehabilitation of the footnote as a literary device.”
— Spin -
“Often funny and very often hugely impressive…Now we know Mr. Wallace can write short. Let’s hope he writes for a long, long time.”
— New York Observer -
“Evocative and challenging…A virtuoso performance of voice, imagination, footnotes, and black humor, showing once again that Wallace is the dark prince of contemporary American fiction.”
— Details -
A host of talented narrators and actors-including television actors John Krasinski and Christopher Meloni-deliver nuanced performances of the late Wallace's classic. But it's the author himself who steals the show: his gentle, almost dreamy voice unlocks the elaborate syntax and releases the immense feeling concealed by the comedy and labyrinthine sentences. While the various narrators ably capture the essence of the text, Wallace's renditions of such stories as "Forever Overhead" and "Death Is Not the End" are transcendent. Essential listening for Wallace fans and a fine introduction for newcomers.
— Publishers Weekly, Publishers Weekly -
The name of this collection of stories is slightly misleading, given the talent and likability of the cast of narrators who bring the late Wallace's work to life. Each of the performers, including actors John Krasinski, Will Forte, Malcolm Goodwin, and Bobby Cannavale, delivers a powerful reading that is as imaginative as the collection itself.... Krasinski, who directed the film adaptation of the book, is especially fine, reading with a stern, intellectual edge that is at once witty and unabashed. As a whole, each narrator complements the unique work he delivers.—Publishers Weekly
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men Listener Reviews
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" At its worst, this book is like a wordy version of Taxicab Confessions. But at its best, this book is funny and smart, undercutting its pretentious intellectualizing by its awareness of its intellectualism and pompousness, pointing at them and sniggering. Oh, and some sections are unexpectedly moving. "
— Nom, 2/13/2014 -
" Read this, and not Infinte Jest, and you'll be a DFW fan "
— Laura, 2/7/2014 -
" I love this book and have now passed it along to my husband. We'll see if that attempt yields any success. My last attempt to share it with someone else yielded the assessment 'too wordy' or some variation thereon. "
— Juliet, 2/7/2014 -
" Most of the interviews were pretty hard to listen to. There were a few that have stuck with me for months. "
— Maura, 1/10/2014 -
" Fantastic stuff. Some of the stories verged on the esoteric, but overall I loved the way Wallace is able to create such rich and interesting characters in very short amounts of space. "
— Nick, 1/3/2014 -
" This book made me feel like I wasn't alone in the very specific way my thought process works when I'm unhappy. It made me want to force people to read the chapter 'Octet' and ask them if everyone's brain works like this. "
— Maxwell, 12/30/2013 -
" Amazing writing, pithy, funny, very original style, a little sick, right up my alley. Brilliant, a touch on the psycho side, but that probably had a bit to do with the shame of his recent suicide. A major loss to the literary world. "
— Christopher, 12/14/2013 -
" Wallace fans will enjoy. I am and I did, though one of my least favorite DFW books. "
— Craig, 12/12/2013 -
" "reading" this through an audio book. Read by David Foster Wallace, and others also. Gosh is it good so far. "
— Rosie, 12/7/2013 -
" Una grande scrittura, ma forse non era il momento giusto. Sospendo il giudizio. "
— esaurito, 8/10/2013 -
" When literary geniuses watch too much TV . . . "
— Paul, 7/27/2013 -
" By no means a perfect collection of stories, but B.I. # 20 makes it all worth it. The book would be five stars if it was cut in half, leaving only the best stories like Forever Overhead, The Depressed Person, On His Deathbed and most of brief interviews. "
— Christopher, 7/11/2013 -
" The first and second to last story would get five stars. None of the others ones really stuck with me, I didn't find the exercises with technicality particularly interesting. "
— Adam, 2/3/2013 -
" It's not a collection of stories ... this is a novel. Wallace the stylist returns with a vengeance. But where he failed with "Curious Girl," he succeeds here. The prose is sharp, witty, erudite. This time he exposes the male sex ... to themselves. "
— Yeti, 11/10/2012 -
" A great book full of psychotic men that reveals a truth that is terrorizing. "
— Gregory, 10/25/2012 -
" Hated it so much I put it down after 3 or 4 stories. I couldn't stand his self-conscious, verbose prose or his attitude which seemed rather mean, although maybe I was missing some super intellectual ironic point. Aahhhh, nope I could not be bothered. "
— Erin, 10/16/2012 -
" Always Overhead is probably the best short story ever written. "
— Jim, 8/5/2012 -
" Incredibly overblown, but still kind of captivating, and at times very moving. "
— Ian, 7/20/2012 -
" one of my favorites - hands down, please. "
— Paige, 1/11/2012 -
" Two questions: 1) How can someone actually enjoy reading sentences like these? 2) Can you name a crueler story than Adult World, which is cruel to its characters, all of its characters, cruel to its author, and cruel most especially to its reader? "
— David, 6/20/2011 -
" Like most books with collections of stories, these are very uneven in terms of quality. The title stories are quite good, and I would also recommend the movie. "
— Billycongo, 6/20/2011 -
" A strange collection of short stories about depression and unusual sexuality. Worth a read if you like the super strange. "
— Elaine, 6/8/2011 -
" I had a lot trouble understanding this book to be honest. "
— Nicole, 5/20/2011 -
" maybe it was over my head... but it didn't do it for me "
— Meghan, 5/7/2011 -
" I don't get it. I guess I don't feel that the short story form needs to be subverted this much. These "stories" seemed to be all cerebral play, no beauty, no emotion. "
— Rebekka, 4/27/2011 -
" No doubt one of the greatest. <br/> <br/>You'll remember almost all of these stories for your entire life, but I just can't give it five stars because "Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko," almost made me puke with embarrassment. <br/> <br/> <br/> <br/> "
— Joe, 4/22/2011 -
" Very humorous. I love the ridiculously long footnotes. They are like short stories by themselves. "
— Gena, 4/12/2011 -
" Shocking, delightful, and IMHO a great intro to DFW. Though other reviewers might disagree, I don't know how one could sit through his longer works if they can't handle this one. "
— Sarah, 4/7/2011 -
" David Foster Wallace is a magnificent writer and this particular collection of short stories was extremely well put together. "
— Ben, 3/23/2011
About David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) was the New York Times bestselling author of Infinite Jest, The Broom of the System, and Girl with Curious Hair. His essays and stories have appeared in Harper’s, the New Yorker, Playboy, Paris Review, Conjunctions, Premiere, Tennis, the Missouri Review, and the Review of Contemporary Fiction. He received numerous awards, including the Whiting Award, the Lannan Award for Fiction, the QPB Joe Savago New Voices Award, and the O. Henry Award.
About the Narrators
Joshua Ferris is the author of three previous novels, Then We Came to the End, The Unnamed, and To Rise Again at a Decent Hour and a collection of stories, The Dinner Party. He was a finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the Barnes and Noble Discover Award and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and was named one of the New Yorker's “20 Under 40” writers in 2010. To Rise Again at a Decent Hour won the Dylan Thomas Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His short stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, and Best American Short Stories. He lives in New York.
Denis O’Hare is one of today’s busiest actors in the film, television, and stage worlds. The Tony Award–winning actor is best known to television viewers for his recent work on True Blood as Russell Edgington, Vampire King of Mississippi.
Bobby Cannavale is a film, stage, and television actor. He has appeared in numerous television shows and films, but he is perhaps best known for his role as a reincarnated matchmaker on ABC's Cupid. He won an Emmy for his guest appearance on the hit show Will & Grace.