Little Stalker

Off-balance, shocking, and assertive right from the start, Rebekah Kettle, the first-person narrator of this story, moves through a life that is a more of a series of missteps than anything else. Read with an engaging detachment by Renée Raudman, Rebekah's voice is, by turns, earnestly confiding and coolly distant, encouraging the listener to like her without really knowing why. The story unfolds with twists and turns that are impossible to turn away from. Surreal moments, smooth flashbacks, and incredible doses of humor abound in this irresistible audiobook. Raudman's performance is well suited to the journey Rebekah takes as wunderkind debut novelist, lost child, and obsessive fan. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

April 30, 2007
At age 33, in search of a man, a second novel and a life, Manhattan writer Rebekah Kettle occupies the singleton’s circle of hell. Having defaulted on her book contract, she’s reduced to working as a physician’s assistant for her eccentric dad, her only meaningful relationship with a senile old woman with whom she wallows in Little House on the Prairie reruns. And she’s plagued by a bitchy, big-breasted gossip columnist who wants her to blurb her book. One bright spot: her brain tumor isn’t fatal. The unlikely catalyst for Rebekah’s recovery is her obsession with Woody Allenesque director Arthur Weeman. She begins dating a sympatico young Weeman look-alike and rekindles her creative spark by writing the filmmaker flirty letters in the voice of a 12-year-old girl. When she spies Weeman in a compromising position, she reexamines her own romantic history with much older men, beginning with her middle-school defloration and subsequent abortion. Belle (High Maintenance; Going Down) sometimes loses the story amid a swirl of wisecracking, madcap moments, and the tone she uses on her more intense psychosexual material doesn’t always work. Still, she’s in fine form, and her sensibility sparkles with offbeat humor.