Do No Harm by Henry Marsh, narrated by Jim Barclay, HighBridge, 9:33, $17.49 digital, $34.99 CD
Jim Barclay voices explanation convincingly, exasperation perfectly and humility simply and without pathos. It’s a good combination for this remarkably candid and moving memoir by British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh, “Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery.” Marsh, who writes near the end of a long career, talks frankly about things surgeons rarely discuss publicly: hubris, compassion, temper, the challenge of training new surgeons, the frustrations of bureaucracy and most surprising of all, mistakes. “As a neurosurgeon you have to come to terms with ruining people’s lives,” Marsh says. He wryly admits to bouts of self-importance. Standing in the checkout line of a grocery he thinks about asking the people in front of him, “‘And what did you do today?'” He feels “annoyed that an important neurosurgeon like myself should be kept waiting after such a triumphant day’s work.” Barclay’s pacing lends suspense to Marsh’s description of surgeries. But Barclay is at his best when Marsh declaims the absurdity of modern medicine and the dictates of the National Health Service: To preserve patient privacy, a CD of a brain scan is sent to the hospital in one taxi; a second taxi carries the password to view the CD. And this is for an emergency case.
Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont, narrated by Hillary Huber, Random House Audio, 9:05, $20 digital, $40 CD
An 11-year-old girl opens a box addressed to her mother. It is filled with printouts of raunchy correspondence between the girl’s father and his lover. Stricken and confused, Kay hides the box for a day before unburdening on her 15-year-old brother, Simon, who shows their mother, Deb. In the riveting story that follows, the children and their parents reel from this emotional depth charge. Hillary Huber’s subtle characterizations prove ideal for Julia Pierpont’s debut novel, “Among the Ten Thousand Things.” With minor shifts in tone, Huber, the narrator of more than 200 audiobooks, moves easily from child to adult, from anger to bewilderment. Her mastery of the children’s voices — Kay’s soft tone, Simon’s voice lower, edged with sarcasm or anger — limns Pierpont’s insightful tracing of the children’s responses. When her mother tries to lessen the blow for Kay, she instead gives Kay the message that such infidelities are normal. “You know what was a lie, then?” Kay thinks. “‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ where married dads didn’t have sex with other women. Maybe they did and just never talked about it. Too obvious for its own episode.” Kay uses the characters of “Seinfeld” to try to explain it all to herself, penning a tragicomic bit of fan fiction that gets her into trouble. Deb’s mother says having kids is “like having your heart walk around outside your body for the rest of your life.” Following Simon and Kay feels a little like that.
Elephant Moon by John Sweeney, narrated by Helen Johns, Audible Studios, 10:18, $23.98 digital
As the Japanese overtake Burma at the outbreak of World War II, British school teacher Grace Collins hopes to shepherd 62 orphans 1,000 miles across Burma to India. Reluctantly coming to her aid is Sam Metcalf, who is taking 53 elephants to India. If anything has the outlines of a promising tale, John Sweeney’s “Elephant Moon” does. But Sweeney cannot stop piling on clichés until one wonders if the larger challenge for the elephants isn’t the monsoon or the mountains, or the shower of shells, but the task of lugging all this romantic drivel across 10 hours of recording. Thank goodness the elephants have the help of narrator Helen Johns, whose lively voice keeps the plot moving and manages to sound convincing no matter how hackneyed the dialogue. Sadly, Johns, an actress with several television credits and a few audiobook narrations, is also not spared embarrassment. In one segment that seems lifted from any number of movies, the orphans break into “Silent Night,” as bombs fall. Leading the singing is an orphan named Ruby Goldberg, “half Burmese, half-Bronx grifter,” who sings “like a night-club artiste down on her luck, haunting, sexual and brimful of soul.” Try following that introduction. It’s hard not to feel bad for narrators asked to sing. The story, published in 2012 but released this year as an audiobook, is inspired by the true stories of Gyles Mackrell and J.H. Williams, both of whom used elephants to rescue refugees after the fall of Burma. Sweeney, a journalist with several non-fiction titles to his credit, might have done better simply following their stories.
Jenni Laidman is a frequent Printers Row Journal contributor.