DEAD EUROPE

Isaac is an avant-garde Australian-born photographer, the son of Greek immigrants, whose search for his heritage culminates in a roller-coaster ride that changes his life forever. Aussie narrator Humphrey Bower manages to make a potentially difficult performance sound effortless as Isaac befriends Jews, Christians, Communists, and ex-Nazis who are all suffering from the traumas of WWII and the civil war in Europe that followed. As Bower reports on the extreme behavior of Holocaust survivors, he diligently introduces us to male and female characters and their varied dialects and reveals their seedy and disturbing actions, raw sexual encounters, and unsteady journeys from Athens to Prague to Australia. Clearly, this is not a light listen but a composite of human nature at its worst and its best. Bower is generous with the emotional details, never hesitating to illuminate the effects of suffering on the human psyche. B.J.P. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2012]