08 Nov / A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne [in Booklist]
*STARRED REVIEW
The son of a Yorkshire pig farmer, Maurice Swift is his family’s black sheep, and will do whatever it takes to succeed. That “whatever” means escaping rural England for West Berlin where he meets visiting writer Erich Ackermann, who provides Maurice his first authorial acclaim. Maurice’s relentless pursuit of literary success demands fresh inspiration: what he lacks in imagination, he compensates for with ruthless manipulation. Betrayal, theft, and murder all become just another part of the story.
John Boyne’s (The Absolutist) latest gets a glorious four-reader aural adaptation. Nina Sosanya, the lone woman, is affectingly biting as Maurice’s debut novelist wife, hired to teach in one of Britain’s premier writing programs. Though the remaining three narrators are not identified in the production, back-and-forth comparisons with multiple titles reveals Richard E. Grant is Erich, his rich narration affectingly tinged with a fading German accent befitting a Cambridge academic decades removed from his fatherland. Laurence Kennedy commands the two “Interludes” – Maurice’s visit to Gore Vidal’s Amalfi Coast villa, his Manhattan magazine editor years – with crisp, exacting cadence. Making his audio debut, Richard Cordery expertly assumes Maurice himself, adeptly modulating regional and social accents, adroitly adapting to Maurice’s levels of sobriety and emotion. With attentive precision, this quartet performs a resounding success.
Review: “Media,” Booklist Online, October 24, 2019
Readers: Adult
Published: 2018