(Read by Andre Dubus III, Brilliance Audio, 9 CDs, 11 hours)
Andre Dubus (author of the bestselling book 鈥�House of Sand and Fog鈥�) is a fine writer whose cultivated characterizations bring to life people in all their wantonness, pain, and desperation. In this collection of his short stories, loosely connected characters play out their unhappy love lives. For the most part the characters are the cause of their own troubles, bearing the brunt of their own poor decisions or an inability to find happiness. And that is part of the problem: This is a terribly hopeless and depressing book. Not helping is that some of the stories seem unfinished and all are read by Dubus, who cannot match his ability to create prose with the ability to narrate it. When reading dialogue he sounds natural but, unfortunately, when he switches to narrative he has a sing-song delivery that is simply maddening. It is only the quality of his writing that saves this production. Grade: B-
