THE TIN DRUM

Can a first-person narrator like Oskar Matzerath, who is confined to psychiatric hospital, be considered reliable? Did the events he recounts really happen to him? Did the characters he describes really live? We can be sure that Oskar lived through WWII in Danzig and later went to Düsseldorf, but not much else. Breon Mitchell's new translation of THE TIN DRUM shows it to be the masterpiece it is, and Paul Michael Garcia's performance—sometimes melodramatic, sometimes at (or over) the edge of hysteria—serves it well. Some of the voices don't stand out as individuals, but this is so thoroughly Oskar's story book that Garcia could very well have made that choice deliberately. Together, Garcia, Grass, and Mitchell take listeners on a tour of love, war, and madness. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: JANUARY 2010]