MARY COIN

Three narrators give voice to Marisa Silver's story, inspired by "Migrant Mother," the iconic photograph that became the face of the Great Depression. The fictional female characters represent imagined lives for the photographer, Dorothea Lange, and the mother in the photo, Florence Owens Thompson. The third character, Walker Dodge, has no real-life counterpart but serves as a bridge to the twenty-first century. All three narrators recount their stories with unemotional and matter-of-fact deliveries that slowly reveal the "thousand-plus words" a picture can tell. Although the women's stories sound real and bring the despair of the Depression to life, Walker's story, through no fault of its capable narrator, seems extraneous and makes the book less believable. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2013]