THE GOOD WIFE

Laural Merlington has a voice so big, so evocative that by the time she’s read the title THE GOOD WIFE, we know we’re in for trouble. Big trouble. And yet she doesn’t overplay her role, as some voices do, putting as much emphasis on spilled soup as on spilled blood. The eponymous good wife is pregnant and has--you guessed it--a bad husband. O’Nan is justly famous as the master of a spare, compelling style. The gravel crunches under your tires. The wicked are banal; the good are tired and overworked. And Patty, our hero, is asleep on her waterbed when the phone rings. It’s her husband, Tommy. He’s been arrested. He tells her it’ll be all right. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 05]