NINE LIVES

Winner of the Booker Prize (1970) and author of 23 novels, Bernice Rubens explores the secrets buried deep in the minds of each of her central characters. NINE LIVES is not about plot. The revelations, when they come, are predictable. The story is imposing because of Rubens’s understanding of human psychology. Characters are developed with subtlety by what they do; their loneliness hinted at in what they say. For reasons known only to Donald Dorricks, he’s garroting psychotherapists with guitar strings. Narrator Di Langford is convincing as Verine, Donald’s pathetic wife, bewildered by a life long out of her control. When Langford reads from Donald’s diary, she recounts the gruesome murder details with chilling ordinariness. Although she sometimes loses a character’s voice in mid-scene, her reading is smart and engrossing. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 03]