The King of Pain
A Novel with Stories
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Narrated by:
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George Kuch
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By:
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Seth Kaufman
About this listen
"One of 2012's most enjoyable novels." (Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times)
"This is a dark, sharp, very funny novel about imprisonment, torture and the dangerous pleasures of stories." (Zoe Heller, Notes on a Scandal)
A riotously funny portrait of an out-of-control entertainment mogul and a dazzlingly original look at incarceration, The King of Pain is part George Sanders, part Italo Calvino, part Entourage, and 100% marvelous.
Rick Salter is a man everybody loves to hate. But that's fine; in fact, it's become a way of life for Rick ever since the launch of his outrageous - and outrageously successful - reality TV show about torture, The King of Pain. So when one Saturday morning Rick comes to on his living room floor, he's not really bothered that cultural critics have put him on top of the list of “people who will hasten the demise of civilization” - no, his real problem is that he appears to be trapped under his gigantic home entertainment system. Which is no longer attached to the wall, but to him. With no phone or BlackBerry within reach, and with his housekeeper Marta off for the weekend, Rick has 48 long hours ahead of him before he can hope for rescue. Forty-eight hours of pain and bad memories. Thank god there's a book lying around to pass the time. It's called A History of Prisons and the stories in the book seem to be strangely relevant to Rick's own predicament.
©2012 Seth Kaufman (P)2019 Seth KafumanListeners also enjoyed...
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People kill people. Guns just make it easier. A gun is sold in the classifieds after killing a spouse, bought by a teenager for needed protection. But which was it? Each has the incentive to pick up a gun, to fire it. Was it Rand or Cami, married teenagers with a young son? Was it Silas or Ashlyn, members of a white supremacist youth organization? Daniel, who fears retaliation because of his race, who possessively clings to Grace, the love of his life? Or Noelle, who lost everything after a devastating accident, and has sunk quietly into depression?
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Ellen You've done it again!
- By Gillian Francoeur on 06-12-20
By: Ellen Hopkins
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Reprieve
- A Novel
- By: James Han Mattson
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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On April 27, 1997, four contestants make it to the final cell of the Quigley House, a full-contact haunted escape room in Lincoln, Nebraska, made famous for its monstrosities, booby-traps, and ghoulishly costumed actors. If the group can endure these horrors without shouting the safe word, “reprieve,” they’ll win a substantial cash prize - a startling feat accomplished only by one other group in the house’s long history. But before they can complete the challenge, a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the contestants.
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creepy escape room story
- By Barbara S on 11-18-21
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Lost and Found
- By: Orson Scott Card
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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That's the question that has haunted 14-year-old Ezekiel Blast all his life. But he's not a thief, he just has a talent for finding things. Not a superpower - a micropower. Because what good is finding lost bicycles and hair scrunchies, especially when you return them to their owners and everyone thinks you must have stolen them in the first place? If only there were some way to use Ezekiel's micropower for good, to turn a curse into a blessing. His friend Beth thinks there must be, and so does a police detective investigating the disappearance of a little girl.
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Good book from a great Author
- By Jim on 03-30-21
By: Orson Scott Card
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This Is Gonna Hurt
- Music, Photography, and Life Through the Distorted Lens of Nikki Sixx
- By: Nikki Sixx
- Narrated by: Nikki Sixx
- Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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This Is Gonna Hurt: Music, Photography And Life Through The Distorted Lens Of Nikki Sixx, is all Nikki Sixx. It is a collection of compelling photography and stories that capture the rage, love, optimism, darkness, and determination that shape his work.
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MUST HAVE!!
- By Yvonne on 05-28-11
By: Nikki Sixx
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Final Cuts
- New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles
- By: Ellen Datlow
- Narrated by: Khristine Hvam
- Length: 15 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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From the secret reels of a notoriously cursed cinematic masterpiece to the debauched livestreams of modern movie junkies who will do anything for clicks, Final Cuts brings together new and terrifying stories inspired by the many screens we can't peel our eyes away from. Inspired by the rich golden age of the film and television industries as well as the new media present, this new anthology reveals what evils hide behind the scenes and between the frames of our favorite medium.
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Not Poor, Not Rich
- By Gary & Jay on 08-23-20
By: Ellen Datlow
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The Rabbit Factory
- By: Marshall Karp
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte, James Jenner
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Marshall Karp is an acclaimed playwright known for his witty sense of humor and crackling dialogue. His debut novel The Rabbit Factory stars the irreverent LAPD detective duo of Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs. Dean Lamaar is the architect of an entertainment empire and the creator of iconic characters like Rambunctious Rabbit and McGreedy the Moose.
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Bizarre but engaging mystery.1st-rate performance.
- By MidwestGeek on 12-19-12
By: Marshall Karp
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The Unsung Hero
- Troubleshooters, Book 1
- By: Suzanne Brockmann
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor, Melanie Ewbank
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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After a near-fatal head injury, Navy SEAL lieutenant Tom Paoletti catches a glimpse of an international terrorist in his New England hometown. When he calls for help, the Navy dismisses the sighting as injury-induced imaginings. In a last-ditch effort to prevent disaster, Tom creates his own makeshift counterterrorism team, assembling his most loyal officers, two elderly war veterans, a couple of misfit teenagers, and Dr. Kelly Ashton.
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New narration breathes life into this for me
- By Kindle Customer (VH) on 06-21-16
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BRAVE
- By: Rose McGowan
- Narrated by: Rose McGowan
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In a strange world where Rose McGowan was continually on display, stardom soon became a personal nightmare of constant exposure and sexualization. Rose escaped into the world of her mind, something she had done as a child, and into high-profile relationships. Every detail of her personal life became public, and the realities of an inherently sexist industry emerged with every script, role, public appearance, and magazine cover. The Hollywood machine packaged her as a sexualized bombshell, hijacking her image and identity and marketing them.
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I always wondered what it was like to be Rose
- By Bobbie J Daniel on 03-01-18
By: Rose McGowan
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Crash and Burn
- By: Artie Lange, Anthony Bozza
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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At a high point in his career, Artie Lange performed a sold-out show in Carnegie Hall-and he did it with a pocketful of heroin. In the midst of a deep, self-destructive depression, addicted to heroin, cocaine, and prescription drugs, he lashed out at everyone around him-from his cohosts on The Howard Stern Show to celebrity guests and even his longtime friends. Then came his legendary meltdown on-air, with 6 million people listening, after which Lange pulled himself together enough to go to a buddy's bachelor party in Amsterdam.
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[Narrator Fail] Comic Genius+Depression+Drugs=Mess
- By Hilary on 11-07-13
By: Artie Lange, and others
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A Very Punchable Face
- A Memoir
- By: Colin Jost
- Narrated by: Colin Jost
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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If there’s one trait that makes someone well-suited to comedy, it’s being able to take a punch - metaphorically and, occasionally, physically. Told with a healthy dose of self-deprecation, A Very Punchable Face reveals the brilliant mind behind some of the dumbest sketches on television, and lays bare the heart and humor of a hardworking guy - with a face you can’t help but want to punch.
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Amazing
- By Erin E. Kace on 07-27-20
By: Colin Jost
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Digging Up Mother
- A Love Story
- By: Johnny Depp - foreword, Doug Stanhope
- Narrated by: Doug Stanhope and Friends
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Doug Stanhope is one of the most critically acclaimed and stridently unrepentant comedians of his generation. What will surprise some is that he owes so much of his dark and sometimes uncomfortably honest sense of humor to his mother, Bonnie.
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Not my thing.
- By J. Harral on 01-27-18
By: Johnny Depp - foreword, and others
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Domestic Violets
- A Novel
- By: Matthew Norman
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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Tom Violet always thought that by the time he turned 35, he’d have everything going for him. Fame. Fortune. A beautiful wife. A satisfying career as a successful novelist. A happy dog to greet him at the end of the day. The reality, though, is far different. He’s got a wife, but their problems are bigger than he can even imagine. And he’s written a novel, but the manuscript he’s slaved over for years is currently hidden in his desk drawer while his father, an actual famous writer, just won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His career, such that it is, involves mind-numbing corporate buzzwords....
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What a rollicking ride!
- By Pamela Harvey on 08-13-11
By: Matthew Norman
What listeners say about The King of Pain
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lee Robinson
- 12-28-19
My favorite book of the year
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
To put it bluntly, this is very close to the experience of reading Infinite Jest condensed down into a fifth of the page count, which is to say it's incredibly funny and remorseful in sublime, subtle ways that can only be expressed via a high word count through an introspective narrator, only this book doesn't completely flood you with footnotes and infinitely nested digressions, instead opting to oscillate between the plight of the protagonist trapped under his fallen entertainment center, the book of short stories he reads pass the time (presented in their entirety with commentary) and his retelling of the events of a popular and controversial reality show he created. I'm a huge fan of metatextual prose and this is wonderfully done as each of the three (or more, if you count the individual shorts) contributes the same range of emotions in very different ways while the protagonist muses over them. This is one of the rare instances of a novel that's exactly as long as it needs to be and leaves you wanting more of the same, although any more would probably degrade the construction of what's there already - a fitting mood for the book in general.
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- Mark
- 09-08-20
Original and Unexpected
I grabbed a copy of The King of Pain by Seth Kaufman and narrated by George Kuch, mostly because of the blurb and call-outs on the cover which promised me it was “riotously funny”. Perhaps it wasn’t to my sense of humour but “funny” wasn’t my take away from this book.
By no means am I saying I didn’t enjoy it, in fact I found myself trying to sneak in my earbuds at any opportunity to listen more. But riotously funny? No. An interesting, original and satirical look at the nature of modern television juxtaposed against stories of real suffering? Yes.
From the blurb I admit I was expecting the “King of Pain” television show to be degrees more horrible than it was ultimately described, which only helped to highlight the absurdity of the “TV tortures” they think up for “The King of Pain” reality show. Sleep deprivation, starvation, emotional – all real tortures but controlled and manufactured by the show where the contestants could walk away at any time.
Our protagonist, Rick “The Prick” Salter (a universally despised TV and movie producer) wakes to find himself trapped, ironically enough, by his own consumerism. His massive wall unit filled with awards, gaming consoles, and three absurdly large televisions has him pinned. Unable to free himself or call for help, he passes the time reading “A History of Prisons” – vignettes of prison stories from different perspectives.
As much as I found myself wanting to find out the ultimate fate of Rick, I also found myself equally enjoying these stories-within-a-story. One in particular stands out about an African prison guard who becomes a prisoner during violent regime.
The narrator, George Kuch, I thought did a masterful job of portraying Rick and delivering a fantastic overall experience. His voice perfectly matched what I could envision Rick looked like. Slightly gruff, older, distinguished but with the right amount of self-importance.
TL;DR
Not what was promised by the cover, but highly enjoyable regardless. You’ll find something original and unexpected in this book.
I was given this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. I have not let this affect nor influence my opinions of this audiobook, and have left an honest review.
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