TORCH

In her compelling preface, Strayed says this is the story "she could not live without telling"; listening to these words makes it hard to imagine any other voice narrating the novel. TORCH opens in a doctor's office with a grim prognosis; using heartbreaking details of ordinary life--for example, a couple dines out at a Chinese restaurant while digesting the presence of cancer--Strayed captures people bearing the unbearable, in this case, surviving the loss of Teresa Rae Woods, mother, wife, and emotional anchor of her family. Strayed is a quietly eloquent narrator for the plainspoken realism of her prose. Her narration--understated but intense, straightforward but assured--transforms her characters into fully dimensional people with a story listeners will want to connect to their own. J.C.G. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2013]