cover image Winged Creatures

Winged Creatures

Roy Freirich. Blackstone Audiobooks, $26.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-4332-0874-4

Freirich's novel offers a sprawling cast of characters, each giving their own personal accounts after going through a life-altering event. However, Dion Graham fails to make good use of the palette here, whispering and mumbling his way through the entire story. Graham's characters are unbelievable and forced, sounding unrealistic and unfamiliar. His reading becomes farcical and fake as his theatrical vocal antics lose the seriousness of Freirich's story. Instead of a narrator, Graham sounds like an actor trying too hard in an early audition, emphasizing every word in an attempt to create a mysterious and captivating atmosphere. Sadly, the story itself is wonderful, but Graham is mismatched. Simultaneous release with the St. Martin's Griffin paperback (Reviews, Nov. 12).