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A March of marvelous listening
REVIEWS BY SUKEY HOWARD
By Robert B. Reich Random House AudioBooks, $29.95 CD ISBN 0375417222
By Manil Suri HarperAudio, $39.95 ISBN 0694524425
Terry McMillan has titled her new novel A Day Late and a Dollar Short, but it's totally timely, and as Viola Price, the feisty matriarch and mainstay of her family, would say, "it ain't short of nothin'." McMillan knows the world she writes about, knows real "family values" and offers a slice of life that's raw and earthy, problem-filled, yet touched with glimmers of hope, resilience and redemption. The story is told in six voices -- Viola's, her almost-ex-husband's and her four grown children's. We see each character as Viola sees them, as they see themselves, as they see each other, still scrappy siblings who love their Mama, love each other but often find it hard to like each other. McMillan's smart, sassy dialogue is made even better by the skillful interplay of the readers -- the author herself, Alfre Woodard and Richard Allen.
By Terry McMillan Penguin Audiobooks, $24.95 ISBN 0141802820
By Stuart Woods Putnam Berkley Audio, $24.95 ISBN 0399146784
By Brad Meltzer Time Warner Audiobooks, $24.98 ISBN 1570429898
Sukey Howard reports on spoken word audio each month.
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Robert B. Reich, former secretary of labor, is an astute assessor of our economy and our lives. In The Future of Success he takes a clear-eyed look at what we have, what we strive for and what it costs us. Never before have so many had access to so much; the better deal that all Americans insist on -- from airline tickets to jobs -- is easier and faster to come by than ever before. But the dizzying prosperity of the new economy takes a high toll. We work more hours, leaving fewer for family, friends and community; we're harried and uncertain about the future; we don't always know how to balance making a living with making a life. In this audio, read by the author, Reich explains how we got here and how to readjust our expectations.
The setting for Manil Suri's brilliant debut novel, The Death of Vishnu, is an apartment building in Bombay. Whether you see it and its inhabitants as metaphors for modern day Indian society, for pettiness, frailty and longing everywhere, or simply as mise en scene for the unfolding drama, you'll be capitvated by the richness of Suri's writing. The characters, thrown together by circumstance, are expertly intertwined with Hindu mythology. You may see Vishnu, a poor servant who lives on a staircase landing as a dying man reliving his youth or as the great Hindu god Vishnu in one of his many disguises. You may see his ascent up the staircase as the soul's progress through existence or as a clever way to wind in and out of the lives led on the separate floors. However you interpret this multi-layered novel, you'll be struck by its fullness and by John Lee's perfectly pitched reading.
When we last left Stone Barrington, former NYPD detective turned lawyer, he'd solved his case but lost his great love, Arrington (yes, if they ever hook up, she'll be Arrington Barrington) to movie superstar Vance Calder. At the opening of Stuart Woods' latest caper, L.A. Dead, read by virtuoso actor Tony Roberts, Calder has been shot and he's L.A. Dead-as-a-doornail. His wife Arrington is accused of the murder, and Stone, on the verge of a disastrous marriage to the willful daughter of a Mafia Don, is called in to get his old flame out of the fire. Thrown into a nest of hyper-viper Hollywood heavies, Stone finds himself barraged by buzzing phones, beauties who can't seem to keep their clothes on or their hands off him, L.A. homicide cops who are sure of Arrington's guilt and the outrageous tactics of his fiercely jealous fiancee.
At the very beginning of Brad Meltzer's Washington thriller, The First Counsel, Michael Garrick, a young lawyer and proud two-year veteran of the White House Counsel's office, reels off a litany of his fears from heights to disappointing his father. But, he tells us with youthful bravura, he's not afraid of power -- he loves it. When Nora, the darkly beautiful daughter of the president, who wears power the way some women wear Chanel, suggests they go out, Michael is in heaven. But when daredevil Nora goads him into going where he shouldn't go and seeing what he shouldn't see, his dream date turns into a spiraling nightmare that puts his job, his reputation and even his life in jeopardy. With his world turned upside down, Michael doesn't know who to trust or where to look for help. D.B. Sweeney's taut narration keeps the story moving at a cinematic clip.