RETURN TO ROME Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic

Beckwith presents a highly nuanced autobiography that spotlights his decision to leave Protestantism and rejoin the Roman Catholic church, which he had been raised in. He bolsters his choice to move from one religious tradition to the other with refutations of some of the sticky bits separating the two. As much as his introduction attempts to diffuse critical examination, his ultimate reasoning will go over the layman's head. Through it all, narrator Grover Gardner continues his ascent to what all nonfiction narrators should strive for— unapologetically embodying the writer's voice. He becomes the mediator between author and document, faithfully rendering the spirit of the text along with the words. His thousands of hours of masterful narration over the last thirty years lend an air of expert polish to Beckwith's prose. S.M.M. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2009]