THE VISIBLE WORLD

In his evocative reading, Glen McCready accomplishes the narrative equivalent of a sepia-toned photograph. At once he conveys a sense that we are in a time and place soaked in sorrows—first, Czechoslovakia during the war, then, New York in the decade or two afterwards. But he also captures an immediacy that renders the conflicting emotions of love astonishingly vivid and present. Slouka's tricky novel begins with a young narrator, the son of Czech émigrés, recalling the suicide of his mother. This mystery eventually leads him to Prague and his attempt to unearth the wartime events that would doom his mother to her self-destruction. With a hushed, ever-restrained reading, McCready delivers a shattering listening experience. M.O. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2008]