AIRMAN MORTENSEN

Many aficionados prefer to hear authors, not actors, recite their own work, being willing to endure performance flaws for the sake of getting it from the horse's mouth. No one need indulge novelists Lorna Landvik and Michael Blake, for he is a fine readers indeed. In this selection, he's about an ordinary, likeable person who learns through trial and error how to live life. The story has a gentle, bucolic atmospheres despite violent, shattering events. It also tastes of political correctness. The errant latrine king of his barracks finds his adult self and love on a military base. In narrating Blake excels at communicating his hero's earnestness and insecurity. Y.R. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: NOV/DEC 97]