Jitters: A Quirky Little Audio Book is an audiobook original that’s something like an old-fashioned radio show, minus sound effects and dialogue. Nancy Neptune, the main character, is a female shock jock temporarily exiled to radio station KNVL in Utah. Nancy’s peppery language, disheveled appearance, and addictions (cigarettes, coffee, and beer) startle the staid inhabitants of Navel, Utah (dry, non-smoking, and caffeine-free) even before she launches right into the same kind of off-color promotional stunts that got her into trouble back in Hackensack.
Whenever I listen to a full-cast audiobook production, it takes me a while to adjust to the dramatization. Because I’m accustomed to the single-narrator style of audiobook, the voices of the different actors in a full-cast production sound exaggerated at first, until I get used to them. Each of the characters’ voices has to be distinct enough to be immediately recognizable, and the cast of Jitters does that very well, especially with Nancy’s broad North Jersey accent, Rocco Campanili’s tough-guy attitude, and the drag queen voice of Jackie Wu. The characters all take turns telling the story from their overlapping points of view, punctuated by brief radio broadcasts from KNVL. (Jitters won the 2011 Audie Award for best multi-voiced performance from AudioFile, beating out such titles as Room from Hachette Audio and The Importance of Being Earnest from L.A. Theatre Works.)
The humor in Jitters is as broad as Nancy Neptune’s accent and as offensive as Nancy Neptune herself (one of her nicknames is “the Queen of Obscene”), but the audio book made me laugh pretty often once I got into the wacky spirit of it. Jitters mines just about everything for comedy, including polygamy, inbreeding, amputations, tragic accidents, masturbation, cross-dressing, obesity, and the good, clean living of the residents of Navel, Utah.
Author Adele Park judiciously spares book bloggers and audiobook reviewers from ridicule in Jitters. Either that, or she’s just saving us for the upcoming sequel…
I received a review copy of this audiobook from Straight to Audio Productions through Audiobook Jukebox, plus a copy to give away.
Other opinions on Jitters: A Quirky Little Audio Book (all good):
Alaskan Bookie
Audiobook Fans
Lakeside Musing