ANTHROPOLOGY OF AN AMERICAN GIRL

Seventeen-year-old Eveline recounts the growing pains of a girl on the edge of adulthood. Rebecca Lowman’s voice—soft, even, despairingly monotone—delivers the thoughts and experiences of the heroine. Growing up in the 1980s, Eveline experiences her share of bad relationships, deaths, and brutality. Lowman’s performance suits the depressing story, which includes continual flashbacks that peel back the layers of Eveline’s life, just as an anthropologist might. But in keeping with the literary device of detachment, Lowman’s tone and pace never echo the traumatic and heartrending events in this young woman’s life, creating a sense of despair rather than triumph. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2010]