CITY OF ORANGE

What do you do when you're the only one left? With a slow, deliberate cadence, Intae Kim shares the first-person perspective of a man who has no clear memory of what turned his home state of California into a hot, dry wasteland. Kim's tone is appropriately exhausted but takes on an appealing lilt during the surprising moments of wry humor that are peppered throughout this atmospheric narrative. His exaggerated enunciation of specific words as their existence and meaning flicker back into the speaker's memory enhances the feeling of entering into the survivor's psyche. Capturing a changed world in which every moment counts, Kim's sincere performance piques the listener's morbid curiosity about what happened as the truth circuitously unfolds. E.E. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2022]