WALKS WITH MEN

Beattie’s uninflected voice is, strangely, just right for this novella about an early-'80s Harvard whiz kid who, after residence in Vermont with her hippie lover, is seduced to New York by a manipulative, married older man. When Jane tells of winning a prestigious award with the same lack of emotion she uses to describe watching her neighbors have sex or hearing about a shocking accident, is she simply self-centered and disaffected, or is she having a breakdown, with the listener a surrogate therapist? It’s not easy to like this passive, entitled woman, but Beattie’s reading is a studied depiction of modern discontent. B.V.M. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2010]