A COCOON WITH A VIEW

Narrator Jennifer Fitzgerald brings her Irish accent to Alice Taylor's evocative memoir of living in social retreat during the COVID-19 pandemic. Offering a gentle yet non-idealized version of all the great and small changes in her own life and that of her village, Taylor describes a way of rural Irish living that seems to hew close to what she describes in her novels. Trading in negative-sounding terms like "isolating" in favor of the more nurturing "cocooning," she begins as she means to go on: by exploring how the weeks and months affected her and her community while simultaneously offering actionable advice for healthy coping strategies. Fitzgerald matches her pacing to Taylor's thoughtful lead, disappearing as narrator to allow listeners to hear this guidance in the spirit it is offered. F.M.R.G. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2021]