SPY OF THE FIRST PERSON

Before playwright and actor Sam Shepard passed away last July from ALS, he struggled to write and dictate this final work with the help of family members. He would have been pleased to hear it performed by Michael Shannon, whose delivery strikes the perfect balance between gruffness and lyricism. His narration would likely be too slow and languid if this were a 20-hour epic, but it's ideal for this spare novella. The semiautobiographical sketches are told by a man suffering from a debilitating illness who reflects on the events of his life, a changing America, and his love of his family. Shannon weaves each of them with a voice that contains echoes of Shepard himself. D.B. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2017]