Narrators

Bronson Pinchot—Bronson Pinchot brings versatility and a talent for delving into the truth of an author's vision to his audiobook performances, garnering rave reviews for everything from classic works by Flannery O'Connor and Mark Twain to contemporary fiction such as Daniel Woodrell's BAYOU TRILOGY and David Vann's CARIBOU ISLAND. We've characterized his narrations as deft and dignified, subtle and compelling, animated and mesmerizing--and always in marvelous synchrony with the author's words.--2011 Best Voice in FICTION & CLASSICS

Screen and stage actor Bronson Pinchot earned a 2009 Audie Award for Humor for his narration of Chip Kidd's THE LEARNERS . AudioFile's review raves, "Pinchot assumes the personality of Happy, the story's protagonist, with such vigor that he seems the only possible choice to narrate the novel." Since then, he's narrated everything from Flannery O'Connor to Stephen King.

Though he'd narrated a few titles for children, it wasn't until Pinchot's friend and fellow narrator Ray Porter introduced him to Grover Gardner at Blackstone Audio that he began working on more adult fare, and he's grateful for the change. He calls Karl Marlantes's MATTERHORN, one of AudioFile's Best Audiobooks of 2010, "an astounding book. Some of the sessions were 14 hours long. I was so engrossed in the book, it didn't matter. Quite often, when the characters were crying, so was I."

Pinchot's recent work has included such diverse fare as a collection of Patricia Highsmith stories and Tim Powers's fantastical novel, LAST CALL. Highsmith is "a god of writing," Pinchot says. "'Strangers on a Train' is an astounding evocation of a stalking, from both the stalker's and stalkee's perspectives. And she actually finds the pathos in the stalker. It's just filet mignon writing--no fat, no bacon wrap."

What's it like to translate such different writing styles into audio performances? "Tim Powers writes in sentences that are a full paragraph long, and after a few chapters, you get into the habit of sucking in quite a bit of air. Patricia Highsmith writes in small sentences. If you go from Powers to Highsmith, you over-breathe on Highsmith and burp a lot. If you go from Highsmith to Powers, you gag for air."

TV viewers may have spotted Pinchot in a guest role on "Hawaii Five-0" last fall, in which he played a drug dealer who finds himself tied to the hood of a moving car--a stunt he performed himself. "After a few takes, the coordinator said, 'YELL, BUDDY!' and I said, 'GIVE ME SOMETHING TO YELL ABOUT!' because they were taking it way too easy on me. My argument was, if I'm cabled to a car hood at four in the morning in downtown Honolulu, with the engine burning griddle marks in my ribs, at least let's have some fun."

Things might not usually get quite so dicey in the recording booth, but Pinchot insists that narrating is by far the greater acting challenge. "It's easily 10 times the work. Make that 20. In audio, nothing at all can be communicated by facial nuance or gesture. Audio narrating is the Everest of performing. When I first started, I was drained and had to have cake and coffee every eight pages."--Jennifer M. Dowell