Reservation Road

Compelling and disturbing, RESERVATION ROAD is a chronicle of grief and reflection as the lives of two families are shattered by the death of a 10-year-old boy, killed in a hit-and-run accident. The boy's parents, Grace and Ethan, and his young sister, Emma, struggle with terrible guilt. No less affected is the driver who left the scene, Dwight, a self-deluded divorced father with a quick, violent temper. In a series of individual remembrances and interior monologues, Cassandra Campbell, Robertson Dean, and Arthur Morey give controlled performances that make the disintegration of lives all the more powerful by their restraint. Each actor delivers an audio gem, performing Schwartz's clean, clear prose in a manner that feels like poetry--lyrical, absorbing, and completely honest. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Starred review from August 3, 1998
"I wasn't rich, but my life was secure. That had always been its fundamental premise," observes Ethan Learner, an English professor at a small college in Connecticut. Moments later, his 10-year-old son, Josh, is killed by a hit-and-run driver, inaugurating a novel of terrible beauty that charts the progress of grief with concerto-like precision. For Ethan, his wife, Grace, and their daughter, Emma, Josh becomes both a cold absence and a constant, haunting, unfulfilled promise. For Dwight --the driver who killed Josh--the event stands as more evidence of a significantly flawed life. Dwight is no cartoon villain; with a son, an ex-wife and a history of sudden violence, he's like a lesser Ethan--a poor father who, through incompetence, has killed another man's son. Schwartz structures the book with the tautness of a thriller--Will Ethan find his son's murderer?--but this book quickly becomes much larger than a simple revenge tale. Neither does it become maudlin or forced. Ethan, Grace and Dwight all seem ruined by the boy's death, but, like three drowning people, they keep fighting for air--aided by Schwartz's strong, measured prose and exquisitely chosen metaphors (describing his now-troubled marriage, Ethan says, "Our house... a wordless, internalized diaspora... a landscape riven with fault lines"). "I want to tell this right," Ethan says several times during the course of the book. The author's first novel, Bicycle Days, gathered solid reviews but modest notice. With this effort, he seems poised to reach a break-out audience. If a story about overwhelming tragedy can be told right, this novel is--telling it with wise observation and abundant humanity. 100,000 first printing; Random House audio; author tour. Agent, Amanda Urban.

The aftermath of a fatal hit-and-run is perceived through the eyes of three eyewitnesses. Ethan and Grace Learner, played by Stanley Tucci and Anne Twomey, have lost their son in the accident. Dwight Arno, interpreted by John Shea, had been driving with his own son when he crashed into the Learner boy, his son's schoolmate. What could turn into an exercise in bathos become truly moving, thanks to three factors--a superb abridgment, excellent acting and tasteful direction. Often in audiobooks, the director's hand can't easily be discerned. Here, however, the consistency in tone among the superb narrators comes audibly from producer Robert Kessler. He has unified the story with a laid-back intimacy. Narrating quietly and close to the mike, the readers provide more dimensionality for their roles than the writer has. In short, this is an example of a production that improves upon the book. Y.R. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine