CAKEWALK

"All this pain and loving, mystery and loss," muses the narrator of the first of this collection of stories. The piece is titled "Between the Lines," a hint as to how to read--or hear--everything set down thereafter. Most of the stories are read by Linda Stephens, who is more than adept at subtly delineating characters by their voices and dialects. Her warm, shrewd narration suits the author's tone admirably. The single story featuring a male first-person narrator is well read by Tom Stechschulte, and Kate Forbes does nicely with the story told by a teen. Strangely, Forbes receives no jacket credit. It bears repeating that short story collections should contain some printed means of knowing which stories are included, and in which order--either on the individual cassettes, or on the package. This one does not. S.P. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/MAR 01]