So today’s fun news of the day is that Tantor Media, a twenty-year purveyor of audiobooks, will be publishing an audio version of The Adjunct Underclass in the somewhat near future. It’ll be available as CDs and as downloads through places like Audible.com.
One of the questions I often ask in writing seminars, when someone’s stuck about the tone of their book, is: “Who should read the audiobook?” That voice has everything to do with the tone that the story takes on. So I’ll put that question to you. Having read The Adjunct Underclass, who do you think is the right voice to read it? Is it an Alec Baldwin book, or a Michael Che book? Is it a Morgan Freeman book, or a Benedict Cumberbatch book? Is it a George Clooney book, or a Jim Parsons book? Or should we play against gender, and have it be a Meryl Streep book or an Aisha Tyler book, a Helen Mirren book or a Jennifer Lawrence book?
Should we borrow the artificial authority and wisdom of Patrick Stewart’s English accent, or the working-class Michigander roots of Michael Moore’s Flint-flatness? Should we take on the straight-shooting, no-nonsense Plains voice of Brad Pitt, or the careful Stanford/Oxford/Yale enunciation of Cory Booker?
None of these specific instances will be the case, of course. The publisher will hire affordable talent, a solid but non-recognized voice that you might hear behind a commercial or on a newscast. But your vote might influence how I listen to the clips they send me for review…
Herb Childress 