TIME IN BETWEEN

Duenas’s historical novel, an international bestseller, covers the years from the Spanish Civil War through the beginnings of WWII, moving between Madrid, Morocco, and Lisbon. Despite the drama of the setting, Zilah Mendoza’s almost twenty-two-hour narration is lackluster and uninspired. Her delivery, at first a rote recitation of mundane lives and events, is hampered by uneven pacing, which strains comprehension by inserting pauses that turn one sentence into two, or even three. Her slow and careful enunciation, like that of a person unsure of the language she is using, draws attention to her often incorrect pronunciation. The action doesn’t begin until two thirds of the way through and is then delivered in a lifeless narration that gives no reward to the listener who has stuck with it. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2012]