AUDIO

Magnificence

by Lydia Millet
6 CDs. library ed. unabridged. 7 hrs. Dreamscape Audio. 2012. ISBN 9781611209839. $59.99; 1 MP3-CD. library/retail eds.; Playaway digital; digital download. F
COPY ISBN
The newest novel from the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Millet (for her 2009 short story collection Love in Infant Monkeys), the final installment in a trilogy that began with How the Dead Dream, tells the lyrical but somewhat flat story of the newly widowed Susan Lindley. Susan, whose husband discovered her adultery shortly before his death, channels her feelings of guilt and grief into the restoration of a mansion and taxidermy collection inherited from a distant relative. Her relationship with her paraplegic daughter, Casey, changes rapidly, even as Susan unwittingly accumulates an extended family comprised of several older women and a married boyfriend. Xe Sands provides a serviceable narration, although her male voices lack the distinctness of the novel's female characters.
VERDICT Neither author nor narrator is at her best here. Recommended only for collections where Millet's work is popular and for libraries with a strong interest in literary fiction. ["The story develops naturally, an ironic contrast to the artificiality of the preserved animals, and the novel becomes a lyrical meditation on what it takes to survive and evolve," read the review of the Norton hc, LJ 9/1/12.—Ed.]
Reviewed by Nicole Williams, Englewood P.L., NJ , Apr 15, 2013
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