INSIDE A PEARL My Years in Paris

Robert Blumenfeld performs this audiobook as if he were late to catch a train, or perhaps being paid extra for every minute he lops off the recording time. His French accent is convincing, but from the first sentences, he is swallowing syllables and whole words, and breaking sentences in weird places, distorting sense. It's a shame because this leisurely, intimate book about Edmund White's 15 years in France, his deep friendships, the food, the talk, his lovers, and many famous acquaintances, succeeds richly both as personal and social history. White embraces eccentricities in his friends, and records them with a novelist's eye as well as generous wit, and his aperçus about the differences between the French and the rest of us are fascinating. B.G. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2014]