The Tenth Circle

January 30, 2006
Picault's newest bestseller moves to a deeper level of drama in the audiobook version of this tale of heartbreak and revenge. When Trixie Stone tells her father she's been raped by a former boyfriend, her family's lives begin to unravel. Daniel Stone slides easily back to the angry violence of his youth, while his wife, Laura, despairs over both her affair and their daughter's agony. The combination of Laura's study of Dante, Daniel's comic book artistry and Trixie's grief makes for a multilevel, multihued tale. Narrator Monda does a good job of giving unique voice to the characters through the complex narrative, and her voice is easy to listen to throughout. Technical issues, such as breaks in flow where a new recording was patched in, shouldn't detract from the overall power of both Picault's story and Monda's unabridged reading. Simultaneous release with the Atria hardcover. (Reviews, Dec. 5).

Starred review from December 5, 2005
Some of Picoult's best storytelling distinguishes her twisting, metaphor-rich 13th novel (after Vanishing Acts
) about parental vigilance gone haywire, inner demons and the emotional risks of relationships. Comic book artist Daniel Stone is like the character in his graphic novel with the same title as this book—once a violent youth and the only white boy in an Alaskan Inuit village, now a loving, stay-at-home dad in Bethel, Maine—traveling figuratively through Dante's circles of hell to save his 14-year-old teenage daughter, Trixie. After she accuses her ex-boyfriend of rape, Trixie—and Daniel, whose fierce father-love morphs to murderous rage toward her assailant—unravel in the aftermath of the allegation. At the same time, wife and mother Laura, a Dante scholar, tries to mend her and Daniel's marriage after ending her affair with one of her students. Picoult has collaborated with graphic artist Dustin Weaver to illustrate her deft, complex exploration of Daniel and his beast within, but the drawings, though well-done, distract from the powerful picture she has drawn with words. Laura and Daniel follow their runaway daughter to Alaska, at which point Picoult drives the story with the heavy-handed Dante metaphor—not the characters. Still, this story of a flawed family on the brink of destruction grips from start to finish. 20-city author tour.

Jodi Picoult has an odd trick of cutting away, right when she's set up a scene of earned drama, into somebody's distant memory. After a speech like "Daddy, I killed him!", you don't want the next line to be "Trixie remembers when she was 8 and the snack at Girl Scouts was. . ." The challenge for the narrator is to keep the air in the tires while the story is in neutral. Carol Monda handles these digressions with the same sympathy and enthusiasm that she brings to Picoult's flawlessly plotted story of a family in crisis. If you can't feel deep sympathy for Picoult's morally challenged main characters, it's no fault of this sensitive performance. B.G. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine