RIN TIN TIN

Susan Orlean is a wonderfully accomplished writer. Her voice wears well over time, and those of us who prefer the author’s voice will approve this production. The text itself is outstanding. The life and career of Rin Tin Tin, film’s greatest canine star, are in their way the ultimate dog lover's tale and the ultimate film history wrapped into one. Orlean’s depth of research, eye for detail, and wry humor—which dances beneath the reportorial objectivity of her prose—all come through in her reading but in a way that is less nuanced, less subtle and exact than her writing. This is one of the fall’s most anticipated titles, and justly so. But Orlean may be in that category of prose—seemingly artless but finely calibrated—that requires an equally subtle and practiced narrator. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2011]