ASTONISH ME

Even more than she did in her vastly entertaining debut, SEATING ARRANGEMENTS, Maggie Shipstead soars with this exhilarating audiobook. A world-famous Soviet dancer defects to the West. The American ballerina who helped him escape gives up the stage to marry and have a family. Themes of talent, ambition, passion, and secrets are set up and repeated with variations over 30 years. To perform this intricately constructed story, narrator Rebecca Lowman must seamlessly voice boy, then woman, then girl; Russian speakers; French speakers, old and young. She’s fluid and transparent in a gripping performance of a tale about performance, even subtly aging the voices of characters we meet as children and follow into adulthood. A sensational piece of acting and a flawless production. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2014]