Roadwork

Bart Dawes has spent 20 years working in a local laundry, struggling to get by and provide for his family. He's always been a dedicated worker, wanting nothing more than to live a quiet life in a world that seems dead-set on ensuring that he doesn't. But when a new highway extension is scheduled to wind its way straight through his very existence, Dawes takes matters into his own hands and, in doing so, loses everything he's ever held sacred. Narrator G. Valmont Thomas struggles to bring life to this introverted character. Thomas's narration is full of one-dimensional emotional responses and indefinable shifts in tone that confound rather than compel. L.B. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine