FAY

Stechschulte's performance in this dialogue-rich Mississippi-based novel is breathtaking. The dialects he puts on and takes off are not mannered or stagy in the least. They seem firmly rooted, as if arising from a particular place. And within that accent, he still manages a convincing variation among the main players--the title character, a young girl running from abuse and impoverishment, and the two men who come to love her, a world-weary state trooper and a brutal Biloxi bouncer. If the novel sometimes sinks to the level of little more than a male sexual fantasy, Stechschulte's assured reading, slipping easily from menace to tenderness to fear, is never less than captivating. M.O. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/MAR 01]