TORNADO WEATHER

In Kennedy's debut novel, a dying midwestern town faces the twin calamities of a missing child and a looming tornado. The audiobook presents narrators Cassandra Campbell and Daniel Thomas May with the challenge of advancing the complex story while differentiating between multiple speakers. The results are mixed. Many of the voices May attempts for the male roles are readily discernible and seem natural, but other speakers are given forced accents or speech patterns that become distracting. Campbell's more successful approach relies on shifting tempos and variations in tone and intensity to capture each female persona. Parts of Kennedy's story stretch credibility, but her depiction of a small town experiencing events that peel back the veneer of normal life is a unique audio experience. M.O.B. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2017]