Going for a Beer

Narrator Charlie Thurston's mettle and vocal dexterity are tested in this collection of short fiction by the renowned postmodernist Robert Coover. These stories can be maddening (the repetitions in "The Elevator"); intensely sensual (the love scene in "You Must Remember This"); almost hallucinatory (in the multiple points of view in "The Babysitter"). In these, among others, in this collection, the narrator is asked to perform stories that are like gyroscopes, turning in and out on themselves. Thurston's vocal virtuosity is on display in the charged dialogue of Coover's imagining of an intense sex scene between Rick and Ilsa of the movie CASABLANCA. Here the narrator convincingly acts out both characters in explicit action. Coover's stories need a deft reader; Thurston more than meets the challenge. A.D.M. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine