cover image The Beautiful Miscellaneous

The Beautiful Miscellaneous

Dominic Smith, , read by Paul Michael Garcia. . Blackstone Audio, $32.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-7861-5785-3

Smith's novel of the painfully ordinary son of a brilliant scientist, and his sudden acquisition of marvelous powers of memory, is read by Garcia with a taste for melodrama. Garcia's melodramatic streak is understated, prodded less by emoting than by tone of voice and careful pauses. Each sentence ends with a slight downturn, as if inflated hopes have rapidly dwindled to nothingness. Garcia, a stage actor by training, treats Smith's novel as an extended monologue to be performed, summoning the moods and sensations of its prose via subtle shifts of emphasis. The result is a performance-driven audiobook, rendered in minimalist fashion. Simultaneous release with the Atria hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 23). (July)