ETTA AND OTTO AND RUSSELL AND JAMES

Etta is 82 when she leaves her husband, Otto, a note to say she's walking from Saskatchewan to the Atlantic coast to see the water for the first time. Narrator Robert G. Slade successfully combines a matter-of-fact tone with a slightly dreamy one to capture just the right note for Emma Hooper's fable as it slips back and forth in time. Slade ensures that the listener feels the dust of the prairies that settles everywhere, including the back of the throat; the gratitude and loneliness of Russell (a lifelong neighbor); the fear and opportunity of WWII; and the whimsy in Otto's decision to build papier-mâché animals. As Etta walks, she's joined by reporters and supporters but mostly by James. Slade voices James with a low, almost seductively dangerous, tenor--perfect for a coyote. A.B. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine [Published: MARCH 2015]