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Famous After Death Audiobook
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(2.94) - 36 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
A brilliant and wickedly comic novel about fame and its discontents.
Noel Hammersmith has two dreams: to bring his weight down to a slim 138 pounds and to be famous. Despite being a diet book editor and exercising regularly, he can't lose a pound, and his hilarious timidity insures that he has a hard time getting attention at all, let alone fame.
To express his growing frustration, Noel begins to write angry letter—to Brooks Brothers when they discontinue his favorite shirt, and to Golden Rule Vitamins, who makes fake promises of easy weight loss. Coincidentally, bombs start exploding after each of his letters, the most notorious leaving a seven-year-old chess prodigy dead. When one of Noel's authors, "Che Guevera," claims to know where the mysterious bomber will strike next, Noel's world gets turned upside down … until a series of riotous and unexpected twists helps Noel attain his dreams, but at a strange price.
Expertly skewering the cult of celebrity, this darkly comic satire is even more true-to-life than we might like.
Includes an interview with the author
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"Could easily be a true story in these days of our media driven society. If you grew up in the eighties, then you will easily identify."
— James (4 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
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“Cheever’s third novel is an artful mix of Noel’s correspondence and journals. His transcriptions of his psychiatric visits alone are worth the price of admission. But this burlesque is also a serious—and seriously funny—examination of the distance between our values and the goods we seem to value more.”
— Amazon.com, editorial review -
“Tongue-in-cheek and often outrageous, this thoroughly entertaining spoof is, sub rosa, a serious critique of contemporary culture’s obsession with weight, celebrity, and success.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“[Cheever] uses a delightful variety of tale-telling techniques to move the plot along and leaves the reader thinking ‘It could happen!’”
— Library Journal -
“Hilarious and just bad-natured enough to be cruel (that is, accurate) in its satire of modern greed and modern fame: an across-the-board winner.”
— Kirkus Reviews
Famous After Death Listener Reviews
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" A dark comedy that is neither. "
— Joe, 4/18/2013 -
" A decent out-of-sequence/reverse order novel that keeps teasing you with how crazy the protag might be. "
— Conan, 12/19/2012 -
" Very interesting. Kept me thinking. "
— Richard, 12/5/2012 -
" Quick read, different, but I don't think I'd recommend it. "
— Colleen, 7/28/2012
About the Authors
Benjamin Cheever, son of the novelist John Cheever, is the author of four adult fiction novels, one children’s book, and two nonfiction books. He has also been an editor at Reader’s Digest and a newspaper reporter for the New York Times, Nation, and New Yorker. He has taught at The New School for Social Research and the Benning MFA program and has hosted a television show called About Writing. He lives in Pleasantville, New York, with his wife and sons.
Johnny Heller, winner of numerous Earphones and Audie Awards, was named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine in 2019. He has been a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award winner from 2008 through 2013 and he has been named a top voice of 2008 and 2009 and selected as one of the Top 50 Narrators of the Twentieth Century by AudioFile magazine.
About Johnny Heller
Johnny Heller, winner of numerous Earphones and Audie Awards, was named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine in 2019. He has been a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award winner from 2008 through 2013 and he has been named a top voice of 2008 and 2009 and selected as one of the Top 50 Narrators of the Twentieth Century by AudioFile magazine.