VERY COLD PEOPLE

We applaud narrators who portray many people, but Lowman does the harder, subtler job of voicing the many moods of a single character. When Ruth is rueful, Lowman sounds it. Joyous. Same. When she's disgusted, her tone and tempo match. Ruth is born into a family of outsiders in a snow-swept New England town at the end of the twentieth century. The houses have placards. The people behind those placards are still looking back at the MAYFLOWER and a passage in which, we suspect, the accretion of status was no fun at all. Growing up in this family and this town means navigating a house of horrors, sometimes stately, other times mundane. Hard-core romantics, turn away from this audiobook. If you're at all curious, though, about what's really going on, then lend an ear. It's both genuine and profound. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2022]