The Nobodies Album

Fictional bestselling author Octavia Frost says, "There are some stories no one wants to hear. Some stories, once told, won't let you go so easily." For her new novel, Octavia has rewritten the final chapters of all her published stories, changing painful details as she attempts to rewrite her past. Kimberly Farr gives form and substance to Octavia's first-person narrative and novel excerpts. When Octavia's estranged son, Milo, a rock star, is accused of murdering his starlet sweetie, Farr's voice is coolly objective, seemingly unemotional, yet boiling beneath the surface. Farr is attuned to every subtlety and self-recrimination as Octavia looks into the murder and reflects upon writers, writing, and relationships. Beautifully performed by Farr, Carolyn Parkhurst's compelling narrative is a story that "won't let you go so easily." S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

April 5, 2010
Parkhurst (The Dogs of Babel
) returns with the story of Octavia Frost: widow, successful novelist, and estranged mother of Milo, lead singer of an up-and-coming band. Milo and Octavia haven't spoken in almost four years, but their separation ends when Octavia learns (from the Times Square news crawl) that Milo has been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend. In short order, Octavia travels to the West Coast, determined to find out who really killed Bettina Moffett. Octavia's quest is peppered with short excerpts from her novels—in original and revised form—though the bits and scraps sometimes come off as filler instead of metafictional excursions into stories Octavia revises for publication and for her own purposes. (Not insignificantly, Milo's band is called Pareidolia, after the human compulsion to see, for instance, the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast.) Parkhurst's voice sucks the reader in immediately—the gift of a real storyteller—but the mixed genre structure will turn off as many readers as it works for, and the mystery plot is thinner than it should be.