DEAD-END MEMORIES Stories

This collection of short stories by Banana Yoshimoto features five women and centers on the common theme of recovery from life-changing events. These include consuming a poisoned curry meant for someone else; encountering the ghosts of a kindly, elderly couple; and finding hope for new romance following a sexual assault. Narrator Kathleen Li matches Yoshimoto's spare, straightforward writing with a performance featuring little in the way of flourishes. Her delivery is as unadorned as the text is as the protagonists pursue peace and, ultimately, happiness. Li does add more vocal variation when narrating sections of dialogue. Overall, Li's cadence is comfortably relaxed, which adds to the unembellished feeling of the audiobook. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine [Published: JANUARY 2023]