TEN NORTH FREDERICK

Scott Aiello narrates this neglected classic with an almost naïve enthusiasm that adds bite to O'Hara's complex portrait of a man who was in many ways a typical American, a man whom nobody really knew. Aiello's clear and certain portrayals of all the important people in Joseph B. Chapin's life--his parents, wife, children, law partner, and friends--play against the book's emphasis on the extent to which we are all strangers to one another, and sometimes to ourselves. But the audiobook is also a portrait of the changes in America and American life from the age of Wilson to that of Franklin Roosevelt, reminding us of the deep roots of what we think of as modern life. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2014]