Where the River Ends

The right narrator can make a good book into an outstanding audiobook. However, a great performance can also magnify a weak novel's flaws. The latter is true with this work. Despite Mark Deakins's skill, the story remains clichéd: poor artist meets rich lingerie model, saves her life, marries her despite her parents' disapproval, and later helps her achieve her last wishes when she's diagnosed with cancer. Deakins works gamely with accents and flashbacks, reading with enthusiasm and care, but he has little to work with. Those in the mood for light entertainment may find this diverting. However, it's more likely that listeners will become painfully aware that they've been down this river before. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

May 26, 2008
In this sentimental story about a terminal cancer patient's demise, Martin (When Crickets Cry
) examines the lengths to which a loving husband will go for his dying wife. Doss Michaels, a portrait painter with a “trailer trash” background, marries Charleston, S.C., debutante Abbie Eliot Coleman, raised primarily by her demanding U.S. senator father after her mother died of ovarian cancer when Abbie was two. A decade after Abbie and Doss's marriage, her father and stepmother will still have little to do with Doss. Abbie develops breast cancer that later metastasizes to her brain, and tensions rise when Abbie's parents want her to spend her last days with them. But Doss and Abbie, armed with Abbie's top 10 wish list and fistfuls of medication, begin a 129-mile river journey from the small town of Moniac, Ga., on the St. Mary River out to the ocean. Martin brings to life the varying flora and fauna of this often fraught journey, while he captures the singular atmosphere of life on a changeable river as it traverses through varying Georgian and Floridian terrain. In the tradition of Nicholas Sparks and Robert James Waller, Martin has fashioned a heartbreaking story.