The Voiceover Artist

September 28, 2015
Reidy’s (Captive Audience) novel revolves around trying to find one’s voice through art. “Th—this is m—myoo—music,” young Simon Davies stutters to his mother, in an attempt to explain his admiration for established voice-over artists such as Larry Sellers. Simon’s love for voice broadcasting becomes his focus, helping him overcome family betrayals and heartbreak, and pulling him out of 18 years of fearful self-imposed silence. Despite his speech impediment and atrophied vocal chords, Simon manages to rebuild his voice and discovers that he sounds exactly like his charming younger brother, Connor. In pursuit of his dream, Simon journeys from Leyton, Ill., to Chicago and New York City, hoping that by becoming a real voice-over artist he might prove himself to his ex-girlfriend, Brittany Case, and surpass Connor’s success as a comedian. Simon is at the center of the plot, but the book has several narrators. Scenes are often depicted and then repeated later from another perspective. Although many of these revisits do not offer enough insight into the relationship among the characters to support the repetition, this is still a compassionate and earnest read.

September 1, 2015
A Chicago-set novel about a troubled young man trying to reach his potential, aided-or hindered-by a cast of colorful characters. This book has a premise as direct and familiar as a screenwriter's log line: a young man named Simon, having recently overcome a stutter, sets out to fulfill his dream of becoming a voice-over artist. Sounds simple, but author Reidy (Captive Audience: Stories, 2009) does all he can to complicate it. Consider, first, the family dynamic: Simon's mother is dead after years of wasting her life with Simon's father, an alcoholic with his own stuttering problem. Also consider: Simon hasn't just overcome a stutter-he has emerged from 18 years without speaking. Meanwhile, Simon's brother, Connor, is building his career in improvisational comedy; he has always been verbose and witty-an obvious shadow cast over Simon's silence. Also, there are the numerous women in Simon's life: ex-girlfriends, current love interests, and his troubled talent agent. As a voice-over artist might say in a commercial: you get all this and more! With the story summarized, the novel's busyness shows. Reidy is restless, moving from narrator to narrator; nearly all the major characters get his or her own section, all in first person (except, shrewdly, for a chapter about Simon before he found his voice, narrated in third). As a result, the novel often feels like it's stopping and starting; halfway in, readers may think the main narrative hasn't even begun. But the voices and characters themselves are rich and varied-a reminder that plot, slavishly tended to, can result in stuffy prose. Here, Reidy has fun, and isn't that sometimes the raison d'etre for clear, familiar premises? The more solid the outline, the more fun it is to color outside of it. Better appreciated as an energetic parade of characters and voices rather than a straightforward narrative.

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November 1, 2015

In this debut novel (following Reidy's story collection, Captive Audience, an Indie Next Notable Book), Simon Davies is a stutterer in his twenties who stopped speaking for 18 years after a traumatic incident with his father. Now he's up and talking, having rebuilt his voice, and has bravely decided to become a voiceover artist--never mind that actor brother Connor scoffs and girlfriend Brittany has decided not to come with him to Chicago to pursue his dream. The narrative unfolds via different voices, with that of talent agent Elaine Vasner particularly memorable. Reidy smartly takes us just up to Simon's first, not wholly unalloyed, triumph, paralleled by bittersweet family moments. VERDICT An appealing portrait of one individual's struggle.

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