2 a.m. at the Cat's Pajamas

Angela Goethals's rich and resonant voice is perfectly suited to this stirring story about three characters and one important day in their lives. Nine-year-old Madeleine, who wants to be a jazz singer, is grieving for her late mother and her inability to connect with her depressed father. Madeleine's teacher, Sarina, is at cross-purposes with an ex-boyfriend of sorts but has hopes something may work out. And then there's Lorca, who is doing his best to keep his jazz club afloat. Goethals delivers a range of voices for each character--deftly showcasing their insecurities and attempts to move past them. Goethals's narration draws out words or cuts them short emphatically to capture a sense of scat singing and create the moody elegance of the Cat's Pajamas--the jazz club where the stories of lost souls collide. M.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

May 26, 2014
Madeleine Altimari is in the fifth grade and wants to be a jazz singer. Despite her mother’s recent death and her father’s descent into an opaque and private mourning, she is trying to keep her fingers snapping and her brassy voice at the ready. Sarina Greene is Madeleine’s teacher and, after a recent divorce and a return to her hometown of Philadelphia, she is trying very hard to keep the faith that something worthwhile will come of it all. These two make for companionable allies, and it’s easy to share in the affection they feel for one another. Tougher to accept—or at least keep track of—is the mosaic of many, many other characters to whom Sarina and Madeleine find themselves linked. Although it’s to Bertino’s (Safe as Houses) credit that she has invented, sketched, connected, and geographically located such an elaborate cast, and in the process established what does genuinely feel like an old neighborhood at Christmastime, remembering who’s who is often a challenge. While the jazzy intentions are noble, the toe-tapping, bebopping tone Bertino aims for feels forced—a melody we can see Madeleine shimmying along to, but not ever quite hear for ourselves.