MINK RIVER

How appropriate it is to listen to this story about stories shared aloud. Some are heard as characters record them for an oral history; others as characters ask each other for stories. These stories and the characters that inhabit them are like tributaries, sometimes crisscrossing each other as they depict life along the (fictional) Oregon river Mink. Narrator David Drummond not only has a full cast to contend with--about 20 characters with distinct personalities and stories--but also a narrative that at various points cuts a sentence at a time between two, and even three, separate scenes. It's a tribute to both Doyle and Drummond that listeners can follow each stream as they flow into a single river of a story. K.W. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2014]