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"Mom. Mom! MOM!!" is what Helen Ames's grown daughter, Tessa, habitually says when she gets irritated with her mother—which is often. In Elizabeth Berg's reading of her latest novel, about a woman recently widowed, Tessa's exclamation comes out sounding loud and childish—and completely authentic. You can hear in Berg's voice how often she must have heard those exact words in that exact intonation in her imagination as she wrote her novel. But those are among the few authentic moments in Berg's monochromatic reading. The story is moderately appealing, but Berg's narration doesn't do it justice. It just isn't the full-voiced, dramatic, authoritative performance a more experienced professional could have delivered. N.G. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2009]