A Product of Libraries: An Interview With Dave Reidy

Dave Reidy’s debut novel, The Voiceover Artist, came out to rave reviews earlier this fall. Booklist praised it as “moving and honest” and no less than Scott Turow hailed it as “tender and beguiling.” The Voiceover Artist tells the story of Simon, a shy young man who suffered such a profound stutter growing up that he chose not to speak for eighteen years. As an adult, he moves to Chicago to break into the world of voiceover artists, the sonorous voices that kept him company throughout his isolated childhood. Independent for the first time, he struggles to find a community, volunteering at St. Asella’s, a fading parish in downtown Chicago. Reidy charts Simon’s coming of age through the complicated relationships with the women in his life: Catherine, a recently divorced interior decorator he meets at church; his tart-tongued agent Elaine; and his ex-girlfriend Brittany. Public Libraries Online spoke to Reidy on December 2nd.