COME WEST AND SEE Stories

Narrators Wendy King and John McLain do fine work capturing the cadences and intonations of the sometimes-enigmatic characters in these linked stories. All but one of these fictions occurs in a frightening mythic construct called the Redoubt, loosely located in Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. The narrations are tricky as many of the characters talk and think in survivalist, militia-inspired, apocalyptic ways that could easily devolve into caricature. The able narrators ensure that they don't. Two production quibbles: Sometimes the stories almost slide together--blunt ending slamming into hard-edged beginning. Also, the opening story about a nineteenth-century loner who falls in love with a grizzly seems an off note in an otherwise engaging collection set in a dystopian West. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2018]