From Publishers Weekly
Tucci, the chameleon character actor and director best known for disappearing entirely into his roles, offers up his bone-dry, world-weary take on Lehane's collection of nonmystery stories. Tucci reads Lehane's somber stories with the greatest subtlety, only occasionally leaving a mark by emphasizing a lone word or leaning into Lehane's prose with a stray vocal twang. Treating Lehane's stories as an actorly challenge rather than an extra paycheck, Tucci gives his reading his all by always holding something back, as if there were other words left unsaid between the lines of what could be articulated. Tucci's fine reading, understated and elegant, is accompanied by a wide-ranging interview with Lehane, in which the author discusses his play
Coronado (adapted from the story "Until Gwen," and which gives this collection its title), his feelings about adaptations of his novels and writing for HBO's The Wire.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–In this collection of five short stories and a brief play, Lehane assembles a disparate cast, yet each individual takes part in a similar search for something elusive. In ICU, Daniel is hunted down by assailants and must hide in a hospital waiting room to survive. Until Gwen reunites a young man just released from prison with the father who corrupted him. Several of the pieces are set in the South, and their pacing is infused with the slowness of a Southern drawl. The mastery of the author's storytelling lies in his ability to create atmosphere. His characters are defined by the mood of the world around them, a world that is often confining and in which hope is thrown aside in favor of a grim pragmatism. Lehane populates his stories with people who are ordinary and reveals the extraordinary complexity of their lives. The decisions they face are unenviable and their choices somehow unavoidable. The author invents nuanced relationships in which murder and betrayal become acts of loyalty and friendship. Each story introduces a touch of the unlikely or unfortunate into otherwise mundane circumstances, then relays the consequences as events unfold. Haunting imagery lingers long after the book is closed.
–Heidi Dolamore, San Mateo County Library, CA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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