Narrators

Talking with Paul Hecht

In our reviews this issue, we discovered that old recordings sometimes have new life when reintroduced to listeners. We called Paul Hecht to talk about THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ , featured with an Earphones Award, only to discover that the original recording was made for the Canadian Broadcasting System in the 1960s. Paul's long career in audiobooks spans dozens of titles and authors as varied as Ray Bradbury and Gore Vidal, Jack Finney and Thomas Mann. In this issue we also review Paul's recording of Bob Dole's ONE SOLDIER'S STORY and have recently delighted in his work with Alexander McCall Smith's PORTUGUESE IRREGULAR VERBS and AT THE VILLA OF REDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES . Paul's theater career in New York includes many Broadway and TV credits, and he's made regular appearances on "Selected Shorts." We asked Paul what is the allure of audiobooks? "It's pure, unadulterated artistic expression direct to artistic appreciation. What is more pure than telling the story 6" from a microphone?"