MUDWOMAN

Susan Ericksen offers a forceful performance of Oates’s latest novel. Protagonist M.R. Neukirchen is an intellectual powerhouse, the president of a celebrated university and a universally respected mind. However, M.R. started her life in far more modest circumstances, as a neglected child abandoned in isolated upstate New York. Moments of this novel seem exaggerated, and Ericksen picks up on that dramatic bent—some sentences are delivered at a near-shout. At other times, her tightly reined energy helps to propel the action forward in a positive way, keeping the listener eager to learn what happens to M.R. as she is confronted by challenges from the past and present. This audiobook will most likely please die-hard Oates fans. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: MARCH 2012]