IN THE DISTANCE WITH YOU

This quiet, character-driven novel, set in Chile, features four principal characters, but only three have a voice. After suffering a fall, 80-year-old Vera, a famous, reclusive author, is in a coma, unable to communicate. Narrator Nicol Zanzarella performs the chapters told from the perspective of Emilia, a Franco-Chilean graduate student who's researching Vera's life. Robert Fass narrates the sections recounted by Vera's friend and neighbor, Daniel, a struggling architect, and by Horacio, an internationally known poet and ex-lover of Vera's. As the three await Vera's fate, they contemplate the past and reassess the future. Zanzarella's and Fass's performances complement each other in pacing, pronunciations, and mood, smoothing the transitions between viewpoints and enhancing the dreamlike atmosphere of this story about relationships, talent, and finding one's path. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2018]