THE SON OF GOOD FORTUNE

Narrator Reuben Uy brings life to a Filipino mother-and-son duo who are “hiding and hiding.” The story is told through the point of view of prodigal son, Excel, who returns to his mother’s cramped California apartment after a brief stint in a desert town, where he’d hoped to reinvent his life after spending so much of it trying to hide his undocumented status. Uy attends to the emotional dynamics between Excel, who never speaks above a whisper, and his larger-than-life mother, Maxima, a retired actress who scams lonely men online. Throughout, Uy deftly embodies diverse characters—from a Serbian grandpa who works with Excel to a string of Maxima’s “boyfriends.” Along the way, he gets listeners to care about what will happen next to this quirky, loving immigrant family. G.P. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2020]