CROSSING THE RIVER Seven Stories That Saved My Life, A Memoir

Narrator Cassandra Campbell gives a calm, even-keeled performance of this memoir of grief and transformation. After nurturing her only child, Christopher, through a devastating birth defect, author Carol Smith loses him abruptly at the age of 7 to an undiagnosed abdominal obstruction. Writing about the tragic experiences of others enables Smith, a longtime journalist at the SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER, to process her own sorrow and find joy in storytelling. Campbell's narration embodies time's graceful distance--the passage of years that empowers the author to knit these stories (of burn victims, seriously ill patients, and more) into her own story and find healing. Campbell's gentle voice settles the listener into the "once-removed" perspective that is required to relish gladness for what once was--born from tragedy plus time. E.S.B. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2021]