K-PAX

When the story and narrator of an audiobook are good, the listener wants to know the ending. But you can't skip ahead, or you would with K-PAX, Gene Brewer's novel about a psychiatrist's sessions with "prot," a mental patient who claims to have traveled to Earth from the planet K-Pax. Tom Casaletto's narration, particularly his inflections for prot and for Dr. Gene Brewer, is superb. Especially memorable is the derisive tone in which prot speaks about human behavior. Although Dr. Brewer believes prot is mentally ill, he can never explain prot's disappearances, or his ability to diagnose and cure people. Casaletto's tone conveys the psychiatrist's certainty that prot is human, while allowing the story to build to a conclusion that leaves the listener wondering what reality really is. D.J.S. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 02]