Bound

Nelson's unflinchingly frank story of the sexual and alcoholic excess buried in the pasts of a married couple is read with care and compassion by Cassandra Campbell, whose breathy voice exposes the hidden unpleasantness in Catherine and Oliver's history. She is a worthy mimic, embodying voices with relative ease, but her strong suit is the narrative tone. Steady, controlled, almost deliberately flat, kept from peaks or valleys of emotion, Campbell mimetically conveys the stifled chaos of Nelson's protagonists, and of their bittersweet bond. A Bloomsbury hardcover. (Oct.)