Ryan Seacrest Is Famous: Stories

by Dave Housley

In Ryan Seacrest is Famous, Dave Housley lovingly skewers pop culture--and our obsession with it--in all its benign yet bizarre, addictive, and addled glory. With a keen wit and knowing eye for detail, he offers serious fiction with pop sensibility. Ryan Seacrest is Famous will delight fans of Road House and On the Road alike.

Genres: Fiction

202 pages, Paperback

First published January 29, 2007

About the author

Dave Housley is the author of five novels and five story collections, most recently the novel-in-stories Aliens Attack!, the novel The Other Ones, and the collection Looney. He is one of the founding editors at the literary organization Barrelhouse, and the primary organizer of the writers conference Conversations and Connections: Practical Advice on Writing, which is held in Washington, DC in the Spring. He is the Director of Web Strategy for Penn State Online Education. He lives in State College, PA with his wife and son. He wants to believe.

Reviews

[Ben]

It would be reasonable to focus on Housley's deft and humorous touch as he skewers, and even celebrates, the banalities of pop culture, but there is something else going here as well, the use of pop culture to engage people in a larger conversation about pain, the pain of break-ups and falling short of your own expectations, of knowing this may be as good as it gets and the realization that knowing this is nearly unbearable, that we are damaged, and we may not be able to fix ourselves, even if we cared to try or somehow fought past the denial and self-delusion that allows us to make it through the day and that ultimately no matter what we do or try the world is likely to collapse around us, little by little, because that's what it does, and because life isn't fair and no one ever said it would be.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

If we were able to give half stars, this book would rate a perfect two-and-one-half.

Housley has a knack for strong narrative, but he seems to be stuck in a well-worn groove. He takes on a lot of awfully obvious targets -- reality TV, superannuated celebrities, tabloid regulars, the culture of celebrity, and so forth -- and when your topics have been chewed over by a couple dozen talented young writers like Chuck Klosterman, Douglas Coupland, George Saunders, et al., you'd better have a startling way to approach them. But although I spent most of every story waiting for an original take, Housley never seemed to offer anything especially fresh. The lack of originality is most evident in Namaste, Bitches (believe me, the title is the best thing about it), a tired account of a Bachelor-esque reality show and the woman who tries to game the system. Housley toils mightily to highlight the irony of it all, but really, do we need to read another one of these stories that does nothing much other than roll its eyes at the notion of inappropriate product placement?

Housley is by far at his best when he just writes a story and dispenses with the herculean efforts at social commentary. For example, the concept of On Sunday Will be Clown isn't particularly original -- it's yet another pathetic clown story -- but handled with a pretty clever gimmick and a light touch. (I will confess that I have a soft spot for pathetic clown stories.) The best story in the collection is probably Are You Street or Popcorn?, an account of a teenage boy's realization that being an adolescent dickhead isn't the same thing as being a social critic.

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to reading more of Housley's work and hoping that he finds his own voice.

[Debs · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ll admit it; I totally bought this book for the title. It’s a collection of fairly unremarkable short stories. The title “track” is about this guy who went to school with Seacrest and it’s ruining his life that Seacrest ended up where he did.

[Mitchell Waldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories in Dave Housley's "Ryan Seacrest is Famous" cut right to the core of our modern American culture with all its emphasis on the surface of appearances, money, and materialism, and he does so in often surprising and always outrageously funny ways (e.g., what would a modern Jack Kerouac look like?). These satirical stories are hard to put down and will make you laugh and nod, and say "Uh huh," over and over again. Definitely, worth a read or two.

[Tania]

See The Short Review's review of Ryan Seacrest is Famous.

[Janette · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of short, sometimes bizarre, stories. Rather entertaining.

[Johanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first story was kind of funny and creative...and then the rest were all the same, and the style wore out it's welcome.