USELESS MIRACLE

This book is monumentally improved as an audiobook production because of the energy of narrator George Newbern. He grabs listeners by the lapels as he voices Professor George Entmen, a nice guy with a respectable but lackluster life except that he has developed the ability to fly. But even his flying--not soaring, but subtle low and slow floating--seems as underwhelming as the rest of his existence. Newbern's delivery elevates mundane descriptions of the self-deprecating protagonist, his dreary co-workers, and his ordinary family. Newbern's performance succeeds in eliciting such a surplus of empathy that one roots for Entmen to vanquish scam artists, fellow academics, and myriad other emerging lowlifes who seek to expose his miracle as either a fraud or a cheap trick. J.B. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2021]