In case you didn’t see me totally geeking out on Twitter yesterday, my pal Carrie Ryan discovered that the “sample” they are displaying of the Kiss Me Deadly audio book is a sample of my story, “Errant.”
I’m still giddy about it. I’ve never heard my work read professionally before, and I think I would have killed to be a fly on the wall in that production meeting, where they said, “Hey, I have an idea. Let’s read the narrative in an American accent, and then do French accents for the French characters, you know, because they are French.”
(Even though they are ostensibly speaking in French. I always think it’s weird that whenever they do historical pictures, no matter what country they are supposed to be in, everyone speaks in English accents. Although I suppose Tom Hulce didn’t. Right? Now I can’t remember. Mozart was not a unicorn hunter.)
The sample does not include a sample of Gitta’s dialogue, so I don’t know if they have decided to do a German accent for her, or if they’ve decided to do an accent that is a mix of German and French, since it’s made clear in the book that her French has a tinge of German accent in it. She speaks French throughout most of the story (a few lines of German when she’s speaking to the unicorn and once when she’s praying, which I know is unusual given that she’s a pre-Vatican II nun and should probably be speaking in Latin, but I decided that it illustrated Gitta’s emotional state as well as her own sense of spirituality). Gitta does, in fact, speak seven languages.
But how AWESOME is that? I called everyone I knew and made them listen to it right away. I can’t wait to hear the whole thing (apparently the audio isn’t releasing for another week — sad face). Given that this is an anthology, I am waaaaaaaaay down on the totem pole, so I had nothing to do with the making of this audio book. I am buying it when it comes out next week, just like everyone else. And then I’m putting it on my iPod, possibly on repeat.
There is an actress reading my short story. She was paid to do this. She was paid to give Elise an adorable little French accent that makes her sound like Jim Dale doing Fleur Delacour Weasely and though I have listened to this sample like ten times already, I don’t think it will ever make me stop giggling.
I don’t know if I’m just easily amused or what, but this is one of those cool authorial moments. My words, performed. With accents I never even imagined.
/geekout
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