WEST OF SUNSET

Christopher Lane’s narration of this fascinating audiobook is elegant and engrossing. His sonorous voice is ideal for O’Nan’s rich imagining of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s last years in Hollywood. With kindness and compassion, Lane entreats the listener to empathize with Fitzgerald as he copes with personal and professional trials—his wife is institutionalized, his career a shadow of its former greatness, his grip on his own health tenuous. Lane’s performance is as effective as O’Nan’s storytelling. Conversations with notables such as Hemingway and Bogart come across as believable, and descriptions of setting and character quirks are vivid and three-dimensional. This audiobook is outstanding—one that might inspire you to visit the work of the great Fitzgerald himself once again. L.B.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2015]