Stewart O'Nan's heartbreaking and poetic story of a man recounting the events of his teenage years, most notably the death of his former baby-sitter, is beautifully read by narrator Malcom Hillgartner in a rich performance that resonates with melancholy and loss. Hillgartner's deep tone is so engaging and earnest it makes the story leap to life inside the listeners' collective imaginations. As Arthur Parkinson, he is thorough and complete in his reading, realistically assuming the identity of a middle-aged man searching for answers from his dreary past. There is little in the way of performance here, not in any obvious sense, but what Hillgartner lacks in variety and theatrics he more than provides in believability and emotion. L.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

 

“O'Nan is a skilled writer who views the lives of his working-class characters with unsentimental compassion; he understands how they are entrapped by social background and stark economics as well as their own personal inadequacies-in Annie's case, her impetuous reactions and fierce temper. The novel's elegiac tone is perfectly controlled, and angst and the lingo of male adolescence are rendered with wry fidelity. But O'Nan's triumph is Annie; in spite of her faults, readers will empathize as she makes the mistakes that will bring her heartbreaking life to an end.”

 

STEWART O'NAN is the award-winning author of A Prayer for the Dying, Wish You Were Here, A World Away, The Night Country, and, most recently, The Last Night at the Lobster. Granta named him one of the twenty best young American novelists. He lives in Connecticut.

Snow Angels by Stewart O'Nan
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