Falling Angels

Anne Twomey's unrushed pacing and gentle, melodic voice capture the listener from the first moments of this deceptively simple story about the friendship of two London girls from very different families and the ways in which those families cope with the end of the Victorian era. Chevalier, author of the bestselling Girl With a Pearl Earring, lets each character tell her version of the unfolding drama in the first person. Anne Twomey doesn't try to create a radically different voice for each character; instead she reveals the characters' varying person-alities, social classes, and ages with fine-tuned changes in the rhythm, tone, and pitch of her voice. It's a quiet tour de force that makes this intriguing tale enthralling. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

July 30, 2001
No small part of the appeal of Chevalier's excellent debut, Girl with a Pearl Earring, was its plausibility; readers could readily accept the idea that Vermeer's famous painting might indeed have been created under circumstances similar to Chevalier's imaginative scenario. The same cannot be said about her second novel. While Chevalier again proves adept at evoking a historical era—this time, London at the turn of the 19th century—she has devised a plot whose contrivances stretch credibility. When Maude Coleman and Lavinia Waterhouse, both five years of age, meet at their families' adjoining cemetery plots on the day after Queen Victoria's death, the friendship that results between sensitive, serious-minded Maude and narcissistic, melodramatic Livy is not unlikely, despite the difference in social classes. But the continuing presence in their lives of a young gravedigger, Simon Field, is. Far too cheeky for a boy of his age and class, Simon plays an important part in the troubles that will overtake the two families. Other characters are gifted with insights inappropriate to their age or station in life. Yet Chevalier again proves herself an astute observer of a social era, especially in her portrayal of the lingering sentimentality, prejudices and early stirrings of social change of the Victorian age. When Maude's mother, Kitty, becomes obsessively involved with the emerging suffragette movement, the plot gathers momentum. While it's obvious that tragedy is brewing, Chevalier shows imaginative skill in two neatly accomplished surprises, and the denouement packs an emotional wallop. While not as accomplished a work as Girl,
the ironies inherent in the dramatic unfolding of two families' lives ultimately endow this novel with an impressive moral vision. Agent, Deborah Schneider. (Oct. 15) Forecast:The popularity of
Girl with a Pearl Earring among reading groups and its record as a bestseller will provide a ready audience for Chevalier's new effort. The perennial appeal of books set in post-Victorian England should be another asset.

Chevalier's follow-up to her wonderful GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING traces an improbable friendship set in an interesting time, Edwardian London. Two dissimilar families with abutting cemetery plots become involved with each other when they become neighbors in life as well as in the hereafter. Chevalier's research (Victorian clothing and burial customs, the women's suffrage movement) is on display, the writing is fine, and this production is marvelous. An assortment of actors takes the first-person voices that tell the story, such as it is: interesting without being convincing. I wish this audio volume included a cast list, since the actors are the best thing about it. B.G. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine