The Angel of Rome: And Other Stories

Collected for the first time, Walter’s (Beautiful Ruins; The Cold Millions) dozen bittersweet short stories offer peeks into the hidden corners of the main characters’ lives and the surprising revelations that change the course of each. Narrators Edoardo Ballerini and Julia Whelan demonstrate their wide vocal range, embodying each character as they alternate narrating the stories. Whelan shines when she exudes the anguish felt by a teen abandoned by her mother to follow a man, the reckless abandon of a young woman undergoing radiation for cancer, and the certainty of a mother trying to explain to her teen daughter when she will become an adult. Likewise, Ballerini becomes an older couple berating an eavesdropping writer transcribing their conversation, a lonely science teacher crushing on his student’s mother, a young man who befriends a sexually charged older actor in Italy, and a gay man trying to care for his father who has dementia.