Today's Spoken Label Podcast (Author / Artist / Spoken Word Podcast) features extracts from the debut novel by the late Annie O'Neill Stein.
I was contacted to feature Annie for October's 2022 Spoken Label back at the end of August 2022 regarding her debut novel 'Exit Wounds'.
Sadly, Annie sadly passed away before I was able to speak to her and so instead as a tribute to this talented writer are several extracts off her novel by Susan Blakely in tribute to Annie.
Exit Wounds is the story off Laura "Born to shanty Irish on one side and Park Avenue privilege on the other, Laura navigates a turbulent childhood filled with the alcohol-fueled abuse of her volatile father and her mother's excessive drinking. As the middle child of three girls, she assigns herself the role of her mother's protector, who dies when Laura is thirteen, leaving her heartbroken and adrift.
Insecure, anxious, and fearful, she tries drugs, random sex, and a sequence of lovers. Along the way she becomes a successful painter and has a bad first marriage. Nothing however seems to assuage her emptiness and her sense of loss. Eventually, she marries a caring man and has a loving daughter. It is only at the end of her life and by way of an unusual and unexpected turn of events that she is finally able to make peace with herself, to let go of the feeling that she never really grieved, and said goodbye to her beloved mother, and to appreciate that though we work at love and acceptance, sometimes the most wonderful experiences in our lives come in unanticipated and unsought ways.
Annie O'Neill Stein has an engaging voice- quirky, funny, full of original observations and expressions, as she adroitly explores the mysteries of the human heart."
Native New Yorker Annie O’Neill Stein moved to Los Angeles in the early eighties as an actress. After many small parts in TV series, from Miami Vice to Charlie’s Angels, she decided to follow her true passion, writing.
Being accepted to Sewanee Writers Conference to study with Alice McDermott planted the seed for Exit Wounds, her first novel.
Annie has written for several magazines, More, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Distinction, Folks and was a regular contributor to The Huffington Post for several years."
Because I tend to read fiction cinematically, I saw each chapter of Exit Wounds as fully realized scenes in a movie.
It isn’t a happy book and it’s not a sad book. It’s a brave, raw story of redemption infused with clever and witty black Irish humor.
-- Moritz Borman, Producer Snowden, Terminator Salvation, Basic, Savages
It manages to be harrowing and hopeful in equal measure. The scenes of a childhood defined by a brutal drunk beating a young girl's dying mother are as scarifying as any coming of age novel I’ve read, and the scenes of a life lived in defiance of the script she was handed is no less than thrilling.
-- Tom Lutz, Distinguished Professor and Chair of Creative Writing, UC Riverside/Founding Editor in Chief and Publisher of the Los Angeles Review of Books
Exit Wounds, Annie O’Neill Stein’s debut novel will draw you in, tug at your heart, and help you appreciate the subtle pleasure of black irish humor.
She hooks you in with her original voice and takes you on a journey without sugar coating or apology and helps one understand the importance of an examined life.
-- Bob Wallace, Former Managing Editor, Rolling Stone
Annie O’Neill Stein’s novel Exit Wounds is a striking debut. Her writing is sensory, emotionally honest, and darkly comic. Like Laura, her main character, Stein is a rule breaker. She takes the reader on a wild and satisfying ride.
-- Jan Cherubin, author of Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2020, The Orphan's Daughter
Exit Wounds is a remarkable first novel, distinguished by its shrewd attention to tactile detail, to the sights, sounds, smells and feelings experienced by its moving central character, all recounted in engaging herky-jerky prose, which constitutes a style in itself. Exit Wounds is a wonderful contemporary example of the examined life.
-- Nicholas Meyer, award-winning author, screenwriter and director
Generous and vulnerable, funny and wise, Annie Stein’s Exit Wounds fill with the kind of living detail that can crack us up one moment and break our hears the next. Exquisite in its portraiture of a troubled family, Exit Wounds feels as vital and natural as breathing.
-- Matthew Specktor, author, That Summertime Sound and American Dream Machine
thepermanentpress.com/products/exit-wounds
www.annieoneillstein.com
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https://spokenlabel.bandcamp.com/album/annie-o-neill-stein-spoken-label-october-2022
(Bandcamp)
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/annie-oneill-stein-spoken-label-october-2022/id1501847969?i=1000582341817
(Apple/Itunes)
https://anchor.fm/spokenlabelpodcast/episodes/Annie-ONeill-Stein-Spoken-Label--October-2022-e1o18rs
(Anchor)
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9kOTA1ZTkwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz/episode/ZDkwZDFmNWUtYjQ0NC00MjE0LWE4MDktYjhiMDc5OTBmNzlk?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiIlYzwh-X6AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ
(Google Podcasts)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MxOo7fSSI0
(Youtube)
https://radiopublic.com/spoken-label-6BalgM/s1!2bf69
(Radiopublic)
https://castbox.fm/episode/Annie-O'Neill-Stein-(Spoken-Label%2C-October-2022)-id2678341-id539742809
(Castbox)
https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/spoken-label/annie-oneill-stein-spoken-W4AwqVrKYD8/
(Listennotes)
https://www.bullhorn.fm/spokenlabel/posts/annie-oneill-stein-spoken-lab
(Bullhorn)
https://podcastaddict.com/?id=https%3A%2F%2Fanchor.fm%2Fs%2Fd905e90%2Fpodcast%2Fplay%2F57762108%2Fhttps%253A%252F%252Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%252Fstaging%252F2022-8-18%252F6da6bd75-66c8-4f8f-001c-58ff5b7133a3.mp3&podcastId=2748767
(Podcastaddict)
https://www.podbean.com/ew/dir-c2syq-15613639
(Podbean)
https://podbay.fm/p/spoken-label/e/1665529200
(Podbay)
https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/bae49616-2295-4e7c-b931-91415a724cb6/episodes/77550695-5100-453f-b7c6-eb32f99a6046/spoken-label-annie-o'neill-stein-spoken-label-october-2022
(Amazon)
https://tunein.com/podcasts/Arts--Culture-Podcasts/Spoken-Label-p1317427/?topicId=199998190
(Tunein)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MxOo7fSSI0
(Youtube)
https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Annie-ONeill-Stein-Spoken-Label-October-2022-Podcast/B0BHXR8XZ4?ref=a_pd_Spoken_c4_lAsin_0_0&pf_rd_p=a202f891-0d90-47a2-ac3f-8ebc4b2943db&pf_rd_r=EDG5CZ742MDZ06QT874H
(Audible)
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Re8qZwOR0USetzBh2C1Kh
(Spotify)
