AN OCEAN WITHOUT A SHORE

Narrator Will Damron was paired with author Scott Spencer for Spencer's best-known novel, ENDLESS LOVE. Damron is a prolific and versatile performer who is also reliably steady and consistent. He demonstrates the balance of qualities necessary for this particular novelist and this particular novel, both of which would be easy to overplay. Spencer is an eloquent prose stylist, unsurpassed in capturing romantic longing and rapture, and especially adept in the use of figurative language. Here the story thread is a gay man's lifelong passion for his straight friend, a situation essentially frustrating and difficult to externalize but performed here with conviction, energy, and restraint. This is a rather joyless book, but Spencer's prose makes it stimulating listening for its descriptions alone. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2020]