THE YEAR OF THE RUNAWAYS

Sartaj Garewal's reading of this novel about Indian migrant workers in Britain combines the best of both audio and print. Garewal transitions clearly between narrative and dialogue, verbally producing the punctuation that differentiates them and making for minimal replays. At the same time, he brings the words on the page to life--performing rather than simply reading the dialogue, perfecting the various accents of the characters ranging from Indian to Cockney, and even adopting different voices for different characters to fully flesh each one out. This allows the listener to follow along easily, despite the novel's frequent long blocks of dialogue and huge cast of diverse characters. M.F.R. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2016]