On the night her father dies, Arlyn is certain that the man she is meant to be with will walk into her life, but fate seems to be playing a trick when John Moody knocks on her door to ask for directions. Cool, practical, and deliberate, John is dreamy Arlyn's polar opposite. Yet the two are drawn powerfully together even when it is clear they are bound to bring each other grief. Their marriage is dangerous territory, tracing a map no one should follow. It leads them and their children to a house made of glass in the Connecticut countryside, to the rooftops and avenues of Manhattan, and to the blue waters of Long Island Sound, all in a search for family and identity. Walking this path of ruin and redemption are Sam, their son, a brilliant, explosive artist who is drawn to self-destruction and dreams; Blanca, the beautiful loner who tries desperately to protect her brother from his destiny and lives her own life in a world of books; and Will, the grandson, who is left a legacy of broken pieces he needs to put together, an emotional and mysterious puzzle made up of people who don't know the first thing about love.Here is a family so real, so tragic, so devoted, it is as if they have written their own riveting history-a quest for love and truth.
Mare Winningham's reading is level, her delivery almost factual, providing strong roots that ground us when Hoffman leaps into moments of magical realism in telling the story of Arlyn Singer. On the day of her father's funeral, 17-year-old Arlyn waits for her true love to show up. Enter the distant John Moody, an unlikely candidate. Winningham's even tones seem to record the characters' resignation--their adjustment to a bad marriage, Arlyn's conclusion of a love affair, and her acceptance of her own death. In later parts of the audio, Winningham's steady narration records the descent of Arlyn's lost son into drugs and despair, the pain of her daughter, and the sadness of Arlyn herself, who haunts John's life and home, looking for resolution. S.W. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine