THE LOVE OF MY YOUTH

Adam and Miranda were high school sweethearts whose relationship ended in betrayal when they were in their mid-20s. Thirty-six years later, a college friend reunites them in Rome, where they had spent their ideal summer of love. Gordon’s book is a slow-paced immersion in the atmosphere of Rome, the experience of first love, and the process of coming to grips with one’s history. Alice Rosengard’s interpretation is also slow, but rather than creating atmosphere, it comes across as pretentious and unemotional. There’s no passion, even as we are taken back to the sixties, when their love was supposedly passionate and lusty. The conversations are formal and stilted, not the tones of love-struck teenagers. All in all, a lifeless experience. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2011]