cover image Tender Is the Night

Tender Is the Night

F. Scott Fitzgerald, read by Trevor White, Naxos AudioBooks, unabridged, 10 CDs, 11.5 hrs., $29.95 ISBN 978-962-634-457-6

You can generally count on Naxos to produce superb audios of classics—but not this time. Trevor White gives a dull performance, though he handles conversation and dialogue better than straight narration and is not bad at accents. His emphases are stilted; he drops his voice at the ends of most sentences; and he reads every word so carefully he throws off the rhythms and phrasing, and thus the tone and meaning. A disappointing reading of Fitzgerald's last, most lyrical, most autobiographical novel. (Aug.)