BROKEN GROUND

Maristed explores one of the many issues that often results when an international marriage is dissolved by divorce: the great distance between the children and one of their parents. As Kaethe seeks to re-establish contact with her now adult daughter, she comes up against a spate of unresolved issues from her own youth, as well as the difficulty of trying to reconcile with a child who does not know her. Johanna Ward narrates with sensitivity to Kaethe’s nervous energy and anxieties. Ward’s pace reflects the impatience of a mother who feels she has already missed too much and must act with dispatch to recover what she can of the past, but who finds it all fundamentally overwhelming. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 04]