A QUIET LIFE

It doesn't seem to be working for 17-year-old Alan. His mother, living in a romantic world of her own, has grown to despise his ineffectual father, who barely manages to keep food on the table, while his 15-year-old sister sneaks off nights to visit her German soldier before he is sent back. Nothing makes sense, and Alan can't even concentrate on his own studies. The glue that keeps the family from disintegrating, however, is the intense love and faith that Alan lavishes on each of its members. Mark McGann's reading is alive with their myriad voices--shrill, gruff, and petulant by turns--and Alan's world takes life from McGann. But most of all the reading resonates with the narrator's deep affection. It is the earnest cockney voice of a schoolboy pained at his family's collapse but helpless to prevent it. Bainbridge has created a quiet life that moves the heart. P.E.F. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC/ JAN 02]