AN AMERICAN SUMMER Love and Death in Chicago

Alex Kotlowitz narrates his audiobook about gun violence in Chicago, and he provides the necessary pathos and emotion you'd expect when an author reads his own work. He has a deep voice and excellent diction, and he knows when to pause for effect, raise or lower his voice for emphasis, and heighten his emotions to make a point. However, he does narrate like a person without vocal training: He trails off at the ends of sentences, can be monotonous at times, finds difficulty in ending sentences emphatically, and can have mushy pronunciations. Even with all of that, this audiobook is a powerful work that focuses on an unconscionable problem, and a great deal of its power comes from the fact that the author narrates. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2019]