DEPRESSION CARPENTER

Wealthy young Jake leaves New York to pursue carpentry work in the South in the 1930s after losing his family in a car crash. While there, he stays with an African-American family and helps with an orphanage project. Justin D. Torres sounds appropriately young as he reads Jake's first-person narration. The story starts with youthful Jake’s guilt about his family's wealth, and Torres’s voice gradually matures as Jake searches for his purpose. His narration of Jake's trip to a bank in Baton Rouge shows that Torres has the tones of wealthy entitlement down, too. The story moves quickly—at times too much so in the writing—but will keep listeners who are looking for inspiration engaged. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2012]