Author feature, supplied by the author via email. David Conte's words are his own, lightly edited for clarity. AudiobookSoul has not listened to Tales of an Unserious Truthteller - this is author-supplied content, not a review.
By David Conte
I'd read somewhere that author David Sedaris loves receiving fan mail. So, as one might do, I got the idea to write him a letter one day. The only other fan letter I'd ever written was to Jim Carrey in the early 2000s after reading an interview with him in Playboy magazine. Several months later, I received an autographed headshot in the mail, signed, "Spank you very much, Jim Carrey."
I was quite surprised when Mr. Sedaris replied to my letter three months later, via a Roald Dahl postcard. I'd ended the letter with a jokey limerick, and on his return postcard were the following words: "David, David, David, poems aren't just sentences of random length that rhyme. You need to rethink the poem you sent me. Just a suggestion. Sincerely, David Sedaris." I still haven't framed the postcard - it's kept away in a safe place, and I do intend to frame it at some point.
One of the listeners of my audiobook compared my stories to Mr. Sedaris'. I wouldn't say that, necessarily, but the stories do contain a lot of humor. Because these stories are nonfiction, I use real names of real people. My family members don't seem to mind, and I feature my wife most prominently in the stories. She just shakes her head at them, though.
The stories listeners gravitate toward
Listeners seem to gravitate most toward four stories in the book: "Vienna & My Valentine," "Take the Cannoli," "Saturday Night Spa: Undisguised," and "Stephen King Now Uses ChatGPT."
A closer look at each of them:
In "Vienna & My Valentine," I suggest to my wife that we travel from Germany to Vienna, Austria, for Valentine's Day, where we attend a ball and attempt to waltz, mixing romance with comedic awkwardness.
In "Take the Cannoli," my wife and I travel through Sicily, where an unexpected burglary of our rental car leaves us temporarily scrambling. I handle it with the opposite of grace, and I even share some humorous advice afterward.
In "Saturday Night Spa: Undisguised," my wife and I visit a nude German spa, where I share my culture shock in a way that's funny, cringeworthy, and eye-opening.
In "Stephen King Now Uses ChatGPT," I write a fictional letter to King's fans about my fake correspondence with his wife, Tabitha, and how "Stephen has now resorted to using ChatGPT to write his novels."
Finding the voice: twenty auditions, one Ed Fairbanks
For narration of the book, I went through about twenty narrator sample auditions. They were all quite good, but Ed Fairbanks stood out the most. With a background in local TV hosting and producing, he has somewhat of a radio voice that reminded me of the narrator's voice in the classic holiday movie A Christmas Story.
He was able to capture my writing voice so well, with his slightly snarky tone and Midwestern accent. The stories do contain snark, sarcasm, humor, and some satire. So Ed was just the perfect fit to narrate my audiobook, Tales of an Unserious Truthteller.
Find Tales of an Unserious Truthteller
The collection runs thirty short stories and vignettes - just under three hours of listening.
About David Conte
David Conte is a former investigator and ESL tutor on permanent disability. His work can be found in The American Bystander, Defenestration Magazine, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife and two sons.
