“Death and the Seaside” by Alison Moore, 5 hours, 14 minutes, Audible Studios
Whenever narrator Imogen Church tells us what’s written on a sign, she uses special intonation. A sign that says “EAT” is low and creaky. “GOD WILL SAVE YOU” is booming and obnoxious. This is Church’s not-very-subtle way of letting listeners know that signs are important in Alison Moore’s far-more-subtle novel, her third. This gimmick, plus a tendency to provide a little naptime at the end of every sentence — if your audio player allows it, increase the narration speed 25 percent — are small irritations in an otherwise sensitive voicing of a young woman whose life is adrift.
Bonnie Falls cleans offices for a living. She was a bit lost as a child and, as an adult, she abandoned a degree in literary criticism and never really found her way again. Now, about to turn 30, she can’t distinguish friends from acquaintances, and can’t even muster resentment in the face of her father’s persistent and cruel teasing. Nothing she starts is ever finished; she puts off doing her laundry so long, she has to take a suitcase full of wet clothing on vacation.
It seems inevitable that the short story she is writing will meet the same moldering fate. She abandons it for days and weeks at a time, until her landlady, Sylvia Slythe, takes an interest. Sylvia’s character is slyly constructed, with layers of personal history accreting gradually, revealing someone more than hapless Bonnie is prepared to understand. The lonely young woman never stops to wonder why the elegant Sylvia has taken such an interest in her; she’s about to find out.
“Dark Matter” by Blake Crouch, 10 hours, 8 minutes, Random House Audio
Jason Desson teaches physics at a small college, but his most cherished role is as a husband and father. Years earlier — before his girlfriend realized she was pregnant — he had a promising career in a high-profile area of physics research, quantum superposition. When a kidnapper yanks Jason from his cozy family life, he’s propelled onto the road not taken, and into the life of a different Jason Desson.
This Jason left his pregnant girlfriend and became a high-powered research physicist, which is only the beginning of complications running through Blake Crouch’s “Dark Matter.” Crouch, the author of the “Wayward Pines” trilogy, which became a Fox television series, traces a high-velocity romp through the multiverse as Desson encounters the endlessly recursive roads not taken. Hilariously, yet fairly effectively, Desson ends up negotiating with hundreds of alternate Jasons also bumbling through the multiverse, each trying to find his way home to Chicago and his family.
This means Crouch gets to write lines like, “It’s me walking toward me. Our eyes meet.” Actor/director Jon Lindstrom manages to say such things without breaking into giggles. Apparently that’s what years of working on the soap “General Hospital” can do for an actor. Lindstrom expertly handles the pacing in this story, never breathless, but with subtle tension at the right moments. Altogether, this one’s a lot of fun.
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“American Heiress” by Jeffrey Toobin, 15 hours, 25 minutes, Random House Audio
Stockholm syndrome. Not one person at the criminal trial of Patty Hearst used that term to explain Hearst’s transformation from college sophomore to a symbol of armed revolution, Jeffrey Toobin recounts in “American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst.” The term wasn’t yet common currency during Hearst’s 1976 trial, but the idea that she had been somehow brainwashed was so convincing that one president, Jimmy Carter, commuted her sentence after she served only two years of her seven years, and a second, Bill Clinton, granted her executive clemency — something traditionally reserved for those who accept responsibility for their crime and express remorse.
Toobin’s account of Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army, while not minimizing the trauma of kidnapping, suggests instead that Hearst was a canny survivor, ultimately shielded by her place in society, who bent the truth to protect herself.
Paul Michael, narrator of some 200 audiobooks, doesn’t distract. His brief opportunities to voice one of the many characters in this 15-hour telling don’t challenge him much. It’s a workmanlike performance — not unusual for nonfiction. Hearst’s actions in her 18 months as an SLA member included spraying a city street with automatic gunfire, making bombs, robbing banks and plotting against enemies. At some point, the account by Toobin, also author of “The Run of His Life: The People v. O J. Simpson,” suggests Hearst was more than a victim — she was a criminal who has never taken responsibility for her actions.
Jenni Laidman is a freelance writer.