DIRTY LOVE

Dubus is an outstanding author, for sure, and here his narrator’s voice shines just as brightly as his literary one. His delivery is direct and lacking all practiced polish, features that are ideal for this raw collection of loosely connected stories. There’s a touch of sorrow, of regret, of disaffection, of distance in his voice—his calm demeanor allows the listener to connect to these intense stories of faithlessness and love gone wrong. There’s even a hollow quietness to the production itself, some subtle audio quality that resonates just as much as the stories themselves. The marriage of author and performer is one relationship—maybe the only one—that works perfectly here—because of the tiny imperfections that make them sound so real. L.B.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2013]