THE SNOW QUEEN

A swell of urgent stringed music introduces a lovely narration by Claire Danes of award-winning author Michael Cunningham’s latest novel. Danes’s melodious voice melds a story that spins from a Hans Christian Andersen fairy-tale quotation to New York’s Central Park, where Barrett Meeks sees something wondrous in the night sky. As Barrett, his brother, and their friends and lovers navigate life’s messy, joyous, sad, funny, odd meanderings, we remember the vision in the sky and question with them what, if anything, it meant. Narrating with clarity and a touch of gentleness, Danes voices characters who sound typically American, while also infusing them with a wonderment that subtly signals Cunningham’s transcendent examination of love, fate, and the meaning of it all. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2014]