WOMAN AT 1,000 DEGREES

Suzanne Toren is at her elegant best in performing this stunning audiobook, in its way as shattering as Jerzy Kosinski's THE PAINTED BIRD. The title character is a sardonic, wounded, brilliant Icelandic woman on her deathbed. In a garage. As a pretty, young adolescent, she was stranded alone in Hamburg in 1942, her father having joined the Nazis and her mother prevented from reaching her in a city in chaos until it was too late. What it took for her to survive leaves her shrewd and bitter, but also full of a wisdom that has cost her too much; it's an indelible voice, a tone the actor must handle with great skill for this powerfully written, ultimately unforgettable to story have its effect. Toren nails it. B.G. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2018]