Revenge Of The Vinyl Cafe (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
With his usual humour, Stuart McLean takes us into the lives of Dave, Morley, Stephanie and Sam. These iconic characters are so real, you feel, as you read, that you know these people, and the stories you are reading are memories of past conversations. The laughter, the sorrow, all the emotions feel real. I picked this book up as it was a gift from Aidan for Christmas.I finished it because I was moved from one story to the next with the promise of more laughter.I recommend this book to my Dad. He would get a kick out of the trouble Dave is always getting into. Revenge of the Vinyl Cafe is one of those books that holds no real 'surprises' in it - if you're familiar at all with Stuart McLean's writing, either read on CBC Radio or in the previous VC books, you know what you're going to get: A series of poignant and sometimes hilarious stories about Dave, a record store owner, his wife Morley, and their two kids.The lack of surprise doesn't detract at all from McLean's gift as a storyteller. He's capable of taking these tiny moments that seem completely innocuous and turning them into grand adventures, and can bring an audience to tears or laughs over the course of a simple paragraph. If there's one set theme to these stories I would say it's about how important stories are to the human experience. Sometimes this is made explicit, like in the story with Dave trying to read his library's only copy of Goldfinger, but sometimes it's more subtle.
What do You think about Revenge Of The Vinyl Cafe (2012)?
As always, thank you Mister McLean for your gift of story-telling.
—Amber
