CALL EACH RIVER JORDAN

Paul Boehmer virtually turns himself this storyteller, a Welshman who comes to America to fight for the North in the Civil War. As a survivor of Bull Run and Shiloh, Abel Jones might have become mean and tough, but instead he has a "horror of equines" and says things like "my heart filled with a malice near to joy." Parry's poetic language is surprising in its power to move the serious tale, as when the major watches a man being hung, and the teller's softened voice neither hurries nor lingers. Speaking as Northern and Southern soldiers, Irishmen, slaves, and Germans, Boehmer approaches the linguistic ability of a full cast. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/JUL 02]