Home from the Vinyl Cafe: A Year of Stories - Softcover

McLean, Stuart

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1862078564 ISBN 13: 9781862078567

Publisher: Granta Books, 2006

Synopsis

Welcome to the Vinyl Cafe. Motto: "We May Not Be Big, But We're Small". Introducing Dave, owner of a downtown Toronto record store and his wife, Morley, and chronicling their valiant attempts to rise to the challenges of modern life, these are tales of everyday struggles and triumphs. In these hymns to common foibles and absurdities, nothing ever quite goes according to plan. A sleepover for ten small boys ends abruptly after an inadvertent screeing of "The Night of the Zombies"; a family holiday is interrupted by a surprising feline discovery under the bonnet of the car; a balding guinea pig runs up a vet's bill for �563.30; preparations for Christmas dinner unexpectedly involve an electric blanket, a hair dryer, a bottle of scotch and a hotel bill. Along the way, Dave and Morley battle to maintain perspective on the idiosyncrasies of elderly parents, teenaged children, friends, neighbours and unannounced guests.

About this title

About the Author:

Stuart McLean hosts The Vinyl Cafe twice weekly on CBC Radio, reaching 700,000 listeners. His stories have all been bestsellers in Canada, and he has twice won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour - for Home from the Vinyl Cafe and Vinyl Cafe Unplugged. He is professor of broadcast journalism at Ryerson Polytechic University in Toronto.

From Publishers Weekly:

Colloquial, interlocking stories chronicle the ups and downs of a suburban Toronto couple in this warm-hearted latest by Canadian author and broadcast personality McLean (Stories from the Vinyl Café). "Holland" considers the courtship and marriage of Dave, the owner of the eponymous record store, and his wife, Morley; early differences in perspective (she thinks eating raw onions is gross; he can't stand those frou-frou chive snippets in his eggs) lead them to a spontaneous skating trip to Holland to cement their romance. "Sourdough" concerns what happens when a neighbor asks Dave to baby-sit the starter for his precious sourdough bread; the sweet, charming "Burd" charts the consequences of Dave's decision to feed an unlikely avian visitor. Dave's daughter and niece enter the picture in subsequent stories, and McLean includes funny scenes about holiday dinners and road trips as well as poignant thoughts about the inevitable failing of Dave and Morley's parents. McLean's natural flair for storytelling helps overcome the limitations of the Lake Wobegonesque conceit, and while he reaches for overly cute, contrived humor in several entries, the overall package is highly enjoyable.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Granta Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1862078564
• ISBN 13: 9781862078567
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272