Kirsten Potter captures the Alter sisters in this skillfully written, quick-witted novel. With her well-modulated tones and even pacing, Potter’s portrayals of sisters Lady, Vee, and Delph Alter, with their tight family bond and inherited guilt, are distinctive and energetic. Listeners will empathize with the family's history of suicide as well as their humorous approach to life and its many coincidences. William Charlton delivers the final section, from the point of view of Danny Smoke, the Alter sisters' cousin. An eclectic mix of fictional characters and historical real-life people, such as Albert and Mileva Einstein, Frank Zappa, and Allen Ginsberg, are involved with the Alter family. With engaging narrators and an intriguing story, listeners will be spellbound.
Pub Date: 2015
Duration: 12 hrs
DD ISBN: 9780062373816
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
American colleges are favorable locales for ghastly event and hair-tearing circumstance. There is, for instance, a good deal of pleasure to be had out of professor and past-prodigy Grady Tripp's awful life, as portrayed by Michael Chabon in WONDER BOYS. There is a certain amount of slapstick here, but it's balanced by Chabon's superb portrait of a gale-force mid-life crisis, a soul-destroying albatross of an unfinished novel and the mind-numbing inconsequence of writers' conferences. David Colacci sounds a little starved for oxygen in his reading, but that's not exactly out of keeping with Grady Tripp's personal gestalt.
Pub Date:
Duration: N/A
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
As a group of men bring their own emotional baggage to their football-obsessed reunion, R.C. Bray delivers his usual solid narration. He shifts his tones slightly but enough to put the listener in the motel with the men, revealing their foibles as the story progresses. The narrator's role in this book is a descriptive one, and Bray is a good guide. His narration becomes extra important because this is a rare instance when there almost isn't a protagonist. The author's well-written story--which alternates between serious and laugh-out-loud funny--uses quarterback Joe Theismann's 1985 injury, a broken leg, as a McGuffin.
Pub Date:
Duration: 5 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781681680057
Publisher: HighBridge Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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