STANDING AT THE SCRATCH LINE

This novel, by the son of Maya Angelou, follows the hardscrabble life of a young black man from the Louisiana bayous to the battlefields of WWI and back to the segregated South. The primary reason a listener chooses an audiobook is to hear a world brought vividly to life. This novel is international in scope, and it linguistically crosses the black diaspora, but Dion Graham delivers his performance in a virtual monotone. This means that the German soldiers, the African-Americans from Harlem, and the black hero from Louisiana all sound alike. The listener's imagination is probably a better narrator. P.R. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/ MAR 06]