STATE OF EMERGENCY

This rigorously detailed exploration of a hypothetical scenario leading up to a second American civil war sits somewhere between a novel and a think-tank exercise. The sheer volume of exposition, either narrated or in the mouths of two-dimensional characters, makes the story move at a glacial pace with little dramatic tension. The writing is consistently good as exposition, and Adams Morgan makes the best of it. But at the end of the day, this is more essay than novel; as such it gains little by being read aloud. A print reader primarily interested in the movement of the story would probably skip or skim a good deal, which cannot be done with a tape. J.N. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 02]