Classic Women's Short Stories

This collection presents two stories of Katherine Mansfield and Kate Chopin and one of Virginia Woolf. One of the the stories--"The Daughters of the Late Colonel"--is abridged. The selected stories offer an opportunity to sample the work of three important writers from the twentieth century. Teresa Gallagher, Carole Boyd, and Liza Ross are powerful narrators, who draw out the style of these remarkable women writers. Musical segues between the stories and notes that provide time for each side are helpful although turning to a particular story will take some hunting. Listing times by story on a particular side would make this less of a challenge. In any event, this is a nice collection, well read. J.E.M. 2003 Audie Award Winner (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

February 4, 2002
Audio Reviews reflect PW's assessment of the audio adaptation of a book and should be quoted only in reference to the audio version. Fiction CLASSIC WOMEN'S SHORT STORIES Katherine Mansfield, Kate Chopin and Virginia Woolf; read by Carole Boyd, Liza Ross and Teresa Gallagher. Naxos Audiobooks, unabridged, two cassettes, 3 hrs., $13.98 ISBN 9-62634-738-4 This fine collection of classic tales by women is complemented by appropriate, unobtrusive classical music from the Naxos music catalogue, along with a booklet with biographies of the authors and readers. All of the narrators are exemplary, but Teresa Gallagher's performance of Virginia Woolf's "The Mark on the Wall" stands out. In this unusual stream-of-consciousness story, a woman sitting idly in her home notices a tiny speck on the wall, and as she wonders what it is (a hole from a nail? Dirt? An insect?) her thoughts wander to the people who owned the house previously, to history, to philosophy, to her own life and always back to the mark on the wall. Gallagher sounds completely spontaneous: listeners can easily believe that she truly is
daydreaming and thinking aloud. In Katherine Mansfield's "The Garden Party," Carole Boyd's insightful performance accurately portrays British class distinctions post-WWI. Laura, an elite young girl, frets that her family should cancel their long-anticipated party out of respect when a workman is killed in front of their house, but her elders hush her, believing that "people like that" wouldn't expect them to spoil their fun. Boyd deftly creates character voices for Laura, her family, the home and garden workers, and for the poverty-stricken family that she later visits. Her reading conveys Laura's conflict between her former comfortable ignorance and her new social awareness.