Chloe Dales's life is in order, but she is troubled—by the aggression of her government's foreign policy; by the poacher who roams the land behind her studio; and by her son Toby's new girlfriend, a Croatian refugee named Salome Drago. Raised in the Croatian expatriate community of New Orleans, Salome is a toxic mix of the old world and the new: intelligent, superstitious, sly, seductive, and confident. Chloe distrusts her on sight, and as Toby's obsession grows, her mistrust deepens, alienating her from her tolerant husband and besotted son. Rich with menace, the novel unfolds in a world where darkness intrudes into bright and pleasant places, a world with betrayal at its heart.
The most important feature of this production is Bernadette Dunne's narration. Besides handling various foreign accents well, she refuses to yield to the melodrama of one character after another. Martin offers no insights into stories of war-ravaged Bosnia and Yugoslavia that might as well have been culled from news stories. Women are raped; children are killed before their mothers' eyes. Characters' actions are predictable at best, unintentionally farcical at worst. The opening chapters, centered around an American college student and his foreign-born fiancée, set high expectations for what's to come, but as soon as she steps off familiar terrain, Martin falters. Luckily, the quality of Dunne's narration keeps the listener's attention. R.R. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
About the Author
Valerie Martin is the author of three collections of short fiction, most recently The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories, and seven novels, including Italian Fever; The Great Divorce; Mary Reilly, which was filmed with Julia Roberts and John Malkovich; and the 2003 Orange Prize–winning Property.
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