MINIMUM OF TWO

Australian actor and narrator Stig Wemyss, whose goofy children's audiobooks are numerous, applies his talents to a collection of short stories that center adult alienation. The tales seem designed to test Tolstoy's assertion that unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way. The details may differ--a husband plots to kill his wife's rapist; a young woman channels her anger at an alcoholic mother into swimming; a boy grows up emotionally stunted when his father abandons the family--but the tonal aridity is constant. One family of three appears in several stories, charting a marriage's unraveling. Wemyss's measured narration propels listeners through each story as its characters struggle against or, more often, capitulate to circumstances that always seem out of their control. V.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2022]