Spoiler Alert! For fans of The Walking Dead, a key event in the season five finale is revealed below. Don’t be mad at us if you keep reading, you’ve been warned.
When Jenny, our editor extraordinaire at Skyhorse Publishing, called to say that our book, Going Gypsy, was going to be an audiobook, we were excited, but had almost no idea what that meant.
We had never listened to an audio book before – at least not since they were called books on tape.
We envisioned Alistair Cooke, by a fire place with his smoking jacket and pipe, earnestly orating the words of our quirky story to the world.
The thought made us all tingly inside.
After the initial excitement passed and our heads unswelled a bit, we became concerned that Alistair might come off as a little stuffy.
As hilarious as it would sound to us to hear Mr. Cooke relate how David superglued himself to the ceiling of our RV, or how Veronica locked herself inside an Italian hotel room, we felt a different direction was needed.
Then it hit us: What if Going Gypsy was read in both male and female voices, representing the way we pass the chapters back and forth between us?
Jenny loved the idea, but in the end, that decision would be left up to Audible.
After tossing in our two cents, we excitedly waited to hear Audible’s answer. It didn’t take long before we heard that they were on board with the idea of having two actors involved in the reading of Going Gypsy, and had the performers contact us for any helpful tips we might be able to provide.
Of course, the minute we found out the names of the actors who would be portraying us were, we got to Googling.
Veronica’s parts are read by Carolyn Cook (as far as we know, not related to Allistair), an award-winning veteran of theater and radio who is fairly new to the field of audio books.
Even though she recorded her first book a mere two years ago, she feels that reading is a perfect fit, as she mentioned in a 2014 interview for Listen Up’s Narrator Spotlight:
“I spent many years acting on stage and then coming home to read bedtime stories to my daughter. I was thrilled when I got the chance to begin working as an audiobook narrator, because it seemed like a natural extension of my life as an actor and a mom. Best of all, my daughter has started narrating audiobooks herself, so I guess all those bedtime stories paid off!”
David’s voice was a big shocker. The resume of Steve Coulter includes appearances in The Hunger Games, Anchorman 2: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, and Flight. Steve also has a regular role in the Cinemax/HBO series Banshee as Elijah Bowman.
And that’s not all kids – we found out that he was currently starring as Reg Monroe AMC’s The Walking Dead.
Veronica was giddy with the thought of seeing her darling husband being attacked by zombies – or even better – becoming a zombie!
Could life BE any sweeter?
So we set about our first binge watching experience by consuming the first four seasons of apocalyptic goodness in less than a week hoping to see “David” go down in a blaze of flesh-eating glory.
Personally, we’d want to keep our wits about us when zombies are afoot!
It was not to be though, since Coulter’s character, Reg, didn’t appear until the fifth season.
But, as if they knew we were waiting, AMC came to the rescue with an all-day Walking Dead marathon on leading up to the season five finale.
And there it was… the voice that we had come to associate with David, and it was more spectacular than we could have ever hoped!
It wasn’t until the VERY END, the cliffhanger of the entire season, that Veronica’s dream came true. “David” dies in a very dramatic fashion, then BOOM, fade to black.
It was AWESOME.
“If only I had not enjoyed that last highball!”
When asked by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Steve “David” Coulter admitted that he wasn’t thrilled when he learned that he was being killed off, but the show’s producers assured him that it was a really cool death scene in the final moments of the episode.
We can attest to the producer’s statements, and Steve must have agreed too, because after shooting the show his reaction was, “It was fun.”
It certainly was fun for us to hear his talents applied to our writing, and we promise that he survives all the way to the end of the Going Gypsy.
We could not be happier about the job that Carolyn and Steve did with our book. It is everything we could have dreamed of and more. The passion, humor, and fun all played out beautifully – and they even “do the voices.” It truly is an honor to hear our words read by such talent.
We’d like to think that they have opened the door to our ultimate goal of having Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play us in the movie version. That’s not a long shot, is it?
Anyone have their personal cell numbers?
David and Veronica, GypsyNester.com
Order the audiobook version of Going Gypsy and start listening to it in minutes!
YOUR TURN: Are you SURE you don’t know Brad or Angelina’s cell number? Seriously, wouldn’t they be perfect?
