Drunken Fireworks

by Stephen King, Tim Sample (Read by)

Overview

Winner of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award

2016 Audie Award Finalist for Original Work

A classic Stephen King short story from the bestselling collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams!

Alden McCausland and his mother are what they call “accident rich”; thanks to an unexpected life-insurance policy payout and a winning Big Maine Millions scratcher, Alden and his Ma are able to spend their summers down by Lake Abenaki, idly drinking their days away in a three-room cabin with an old dock and a lick of a beach.

Across the lake, they can see what “real rich” looks like: the Massimo family’s Twelve Pines Camp, the big white mansion with guest house and tennis court that Alden’s Ma says is paid for by “ill-gotten gains” courtesy of Massimo Construction. When Alden’s holiday-weekend sparklers and firecrackers set off what over the next few years comes to be known as the Fourth of July Arms Race, he learns how far he and the Massimos will go to win an annual neighborly rivalry—one that lands Alden in the Castle County jail.

Read by beloved Down East storyteller Tim Sample—praised by Stephen King for his “wit and talent and good-heartedness”—Drunken Fireworks makes for explosive audio listening.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442389649
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Audio
Publication date:	06/30/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,062,442
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 5.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Tim Sample is a New England humorist, famous both for his presentation and his Maine accent. He has sold well over a million copies of his books, albums, and videos, including four albums and a video for the Bert and I company

Hometown:

Bangor, Maine

Date of Birth:

September 21, 1947

Place of Birth:

Portland, Maine

Education:

B.S., University of Maine at Orono, 1970

Website:

http://www.stephenking.com

Editorial Reviews

07/27/2015
This short, humorous tale, about a Fourth of July fireworks competition that gets magnificently out of hand, will not appear in print until November, when it arrives as part of King's collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. Its narrator, Alden McCausland, is a nonstop boozer who has been sipping away the summers with his similarly inebriated mom in a meager three-room cottage on Lake Abenaki. On a fateful Fourth, the McCauslands set off a few sparklers and rockets, and the Massimo family, the high-living, high-style occupants of the mansion across the lake, top that with their display, thereby initiating an ever-escalating rocket war that cannot end well. The production has the sound of a one-man theatrical performance, and its entertainment value depends as much on the one man as it does on the material. King's story, though its inevitable conclusion siphons off any suspense, is amusing enough to keep one listening, especially with Sample narrating it in the same kind of appropriate "down east" accent he used for over a decade on the "Postcards from Maine" segments on CBS News Sunday Morning. This audiobook is pretty much in the same wheelhouse as "Postcards," only drunker. And, ultimately, more explosive. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Audio

10/01/2015
The Hatfields and the McCoys, the Corleones and the Tattaglias, and now the McCauslands and the Massimos. Narrator Tim Sample evocatively brings to life Stephen King's latest novella, which will be included this fall in King's collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. Alden and Ma McCausland are Maine blue-collar locals who—through some dumb luck and planning—are "accident rich." With their wealth, they are enjoying life (i.e., boozing it up) in a cabin by the lake. Right across the lake are the Massimos—wealthy out-of-towners, complete with white dinner jackets, well-groomed sons, and Yankee arrogance. A simple July 4th fireworks celebration turns into an annual (and ever-escalating) competition between the families until the fateful Independence Day, 2015 (year three into their rivalry). Although Sample does an impeccable job breathing life into the New England characters and their mannerisms, the story lacks the punch or climactic end needed to be really captivating. VERDICT This is a good listen for the narration but not the plot.—Cathleen Keyser, NoveList, Durham, NC

Library Journal - Audio

Combining Stephen King's masterful storytelling with humor, bizarre characters, and fireworks, narrator Tim Sample unfurls the story of an escalating rivalry with precision. In the rolling, deliberately paced drawl of a seasoned Mainer, Sample recounts a yearly fireworks competition: Alden McCausland and his mother against the wealthy summering Massimos, from Rhode Island. Jaunty, trumpeted renditions of “America the Beautiful” book-end this performance, its lurching, spirited notes mirroring the lunacy in King’s landscape of dialogue, family history, and mounting desperation. Sample’s sardonic delivery peppers a sordid narrative with moments of flippancy, and by grounding the dialogue and characterizations in specificity, he keeps a tight reign on King's kaleidoscopic sense of detail. An odd, enjoyable summer listen, and an excellent recommendation for non-horror fans who are interested in King’s work. K.S.B. 2016 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

JULY 2015 - AudioFile