The Right Stuff

By: Tom Wolfe / Narrated By: Dennis Quaid

Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins

Uhm, whooo has the right stuff? Try Wolfe, try Quaid!!!

I can’t tell you how MUCH I thoroughly enjoyed The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe! When it came out on Audible, I picked it up posthaste, no questions asked. And even thought I was sooo delighted to see that “Gordo”, Dennis Quaid was narrating it, I triiiied to keep my expectations completely and unutterably low. After all, wouldn’t Wolfe’s sublime (I’d read it before, several times, in print) writing be enough? Absolutely, right?

Ahhh, but to HEAR it has been really quite awesome! Wolfe has that supremely spectacular way of writing this story, very masculine (pedal to the metal), very driven, that has the reader engaged from the get-go. But Quaid? Ohhhh, how MUCH he adds to it!

This is only the second time I’ve listened to it since it came out, but with the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing, I thought that now would be a fantastic time to listen to the story of the men (And women!) who paved the way. Why do I include women in this? Because that’s just how the story opens: A base wife, the wife of a test pilot, fears, DREADS to the point of hallucinations, that visit from the man who announces the death of a husband who died while flying some godforsaken beast of a plane. She sees death all around her, funeral clothes are taken out and used time and time again. When he goes up into space and she’s asked if she’s afraid, she guffaws. Space is as NOTHING compared to her terror during the past couple of decades of her husband flying tin can demons.

We get to hear the story of the wives; we get to hear the story of the astronauts; we hear the stories of the USSR, the failures of the US, the stories of Presidents, the stories of engineers. We get to hear it ALL, and it makes for a terrific experience.

What about screwing the pooch? We hear of Grissom who did it in a most ignominious fashion (“I dunno—the hatch just blew!”); we hear of it about Carpenter who used too much fuel whilst playing during science experiments (But we are told it’s mostly because NASA was sooo DONE with astronaut antics by that time, that the astronauts were plenty peeved that Carpenter went in line before Deke Slayton, even tho’ that was because Slayton had a newly diagnosed health condition, actually). Screwing the pooch means Ya ROYALLY F-d up.

And get used to the F word cuz men, men with the Right Stuff, use it. Like, All. The. Time. Sleek writing. Spare writing. Writing which uses the F word, not like it’s going outta style, but like it’s a word that is wholeheartedly and lovingly embraced by real men.

The whole book is about what makes a man, he who has the Right Stuff; what makes a man who washes out and can only dream of sitting, ass firmly planted, on a rocket soon to zoom into the sky, into space. It starts with test pilots in the desert, works its way up, lands on the Mercury space program (Even tho’ there’s plenty of angst to go around regarding the fact that there’s verrrry little flying to do and that a chimpanzee ALWAYS does the FIRST most dangerous bit. And by the way? The stories of the chimpanzees are told also, of their operant conditioning where they’ll so push any button, pull any lever, do ANYthing, all in an attempt to get the hell away from electric shocks).

The personalities of each of the astronauts are beautifully brought forth by Wolfe, and we come to know just why each were men with the Right Stuff, no matter what happened to them (And, as stated above, the whole screwing of the pooches damned a couple of them). I loved that, even tho’ Mercury was waaaay before my time, I felt as though I knew the men, and I was on the edge of my seat as they made their journeys into the unknown. Even though I, of course, knew how their stories came out, I was still held breathless, heart pounding with excitement.

And chalk a LOT of that excitement up to Dennis Quaid’s narration style. He goes in no-nonsense, acting abilities at full-throttle, and he gives the performance of his life. Whether he’s doing the Aw-Shucks personality of John Glenn, or the hissy, static-ridden, Mission Control transmissions, Quaid is THERE! It’s a totally unselfconscious delivery that is soooo much fun. The F-word? He keeps it all in context so that it’s just: One-of-the-Guys rather than profanity. And if you wanna feeeel the emotion of a piece, feeeel the pace and the tension? He makes it that much more unbearable. Truly, I wish he did more audiobooks, but there’s only one Tom Wolfe worthy of him; there’s only one The Right Stuff!

This is 15 hours and 42 minutes of pure zapped out, zoned out, stressed out, blissss. It in no way feels like you’re spending almost 16 hours of your life sitting around (Or unloading dishwashers!) just listening to a story that you already know about. And if you’ve seen the movie, fear not. The audiobook is, as it should be, BETTER than the movie. Yes, you’ll recognize some scenes but, boy oh boy, there’s so much else that Wolfe packed in there, that Quaid makes memorable.

So I dunno: Do ya think I kinda sorta liked it?

Welllll, maaaaybe…

Uhm, YEAH! Loved it and will be listening to it again next year. Apollo? Try Mercury first!!!