THE GIRL GREEN AS ELDERFLOWER

Humphrey Bower is an Australian national treasure, if you ask me, and he shows why in this lovely, lyrical, and strange audiobook by prize-winning novelist Randolph Stow. The story takes place in Suffolk, England, Crispin Clare's family homeland, where Crispin has gone to recuperate from illness and trauma experienced in the antipodes. We don't know exactly what happened to him down under and don't need to; the story here is that his interactions with his young cousins, their widowed mother, and some medieval local myths that seem to be breaking through into their reality in some way lead him toward understanding and mending. Bower infuses this wonderful storytelling with a poetic sense of mystery that is somehow fey and convincing at once, and utterly memorable. B.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2017]