From Publishers Weekly
Harrison's novel of a dying man's retelling of his complex family history requires multiple readers to bring it to life. Svendsgaard, Porter, Weiner and Garcia all stick close to the rueful and world-weary, with long pauses and a subtle downturn of intonation marking their readings. They tag-team Harrison's prose, which shifts back and forth between the reminiscences of its protagonists, with Svendsgaard often leaping in to amend or second the stray thoughts of dying Donald Burkett. Weiner, as Donald, gives his reading just the right flat, clipped tone, each sentence ending abruptly and without warning. Donald's memories, in Weiner's rendering, are less the florid interior dramas of a romantically rendered past than the honest remembrance of what once was. The other readers follow Weiner's lead, echoing his spare performance ably and underscoring his fine work.
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From AudioFile
Donald Burkett is 45 and dying. The Chippewa-Finnish man, first introduced in TRUE NORTH, determines to chronicle his family's history before he dies of Lou Gehrig's disease. The exceptional cast, including Traci Svendsgaard, Ray Porter, Tom Weiner, and Paul Michael Garcia, present his story, sometimes harshly, sometimes tenderly, but always unsentimentally and truthfully. Beginning in 1871, with the ancestors who came to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and moving between past and present, Donald describes lives lived against a background of nature, a world filled with violence, love, the unknown, and the possible. In this beautiful, spiritual book, the narrators offer impressive performances, bringing a welcome clarity to each human moment. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
This text refers to an alternate
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edition.