DADDY Stories

Listening to the 10 stories in Emma Cline's second book (following her highly regarded 2017 novel, THE GIRLS) is like opening a catalogue of pre-pandemic Southern California consumer culture. Natasha Soudek is a skilled and expressive narrator, and Cline's stories are uniformly well crafted, polished, and sharply observed in the understated NEW YORKER fashion. Together they confirm Cline's growing reputation and Soudek's affinity for literary short stories. These are detached slice-of-life stories, short on drama and resolution, and locked inside a moment of affluent middle-class American life that now seems bygone--even historical. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2020]