Two books set in Providence. Three with Rhode Island authors. One with a narrator who grew up in the state. All in four audiobooks that are this month’s listens.
“The Bridge Back to You”
By Riss M. Neilson, read by Art Bautista and Imani Jade Powers. Penguin Audio, 10¾ hours, $23.
Providence author Neilson is back with another Rhode Island-set novel, this one a romance. And once again, it’s an excellent listen.
It’s the story of Olivia Jones, a private chef who’s a decade away from her time in Little Rhody, and Carmello Rodriguez, the first love she left behind, breaking his heart. They’re reunited when Carmello phones to frostily inform Olivia that his late mother has left her a quarter share of Mom’s Filipino restaurant, Celia’s Place.
The path that follows for the two of them is obvious, so it’s the journey that matters. And as always with Neilson, it’s a pleasurable trip.
For local listeners, there’s a bonus of familiar locations, including Oakland Cemetery in Providence, Dairy Twirl in Cranston, the downtown pedestrian bridge that gives the book its title. But these aren’t just name checks — they’re places where things happen, often involving real Rhody things, like a food truck event at the bridge featuring Poppin Minis doughnuts. Some of the characters from Neilson’s novel “A Love Like the Sun” show up, too, adding to the homey feeling.
And for any listener, there’s good character development, including graphic, steamy sex scenes that manage to be erotic rather than crass, as well as a low-key exploration of mental-health themes. Neilson explains in a brief afterword that she experienced a mental breakdown within the last few years, and that this is her way of assuring listeners that these issues are normal.
Finally, the reading by Bautista and Powers is just right — warm and caring without being cloying. They’re a good match, and so are the characters they play.
“Transcription: A Novel”
By Ben Lerner, read by Seth Numrich. Macmillan Audio, 4¼ hours, $17.99. Available through all Rhode Island public libraries.
This brief, enigmatic novel — much of it set in Providence — tells the story of an unnamed middle-aged writer and his 90-year-old mentor, Thomas, father of his college pal Max.
As it begins, the writer has just arrived from New York to interview Thomas, a Brown University professor and major figure in the arts world who hasn’t talked to a reporter in years. Checking into the Hotel Providence, across from the Mathewson Street Church (both described with an eye for detail), he manages to drop his phone into the water-filled sink, rendering it useless for recording their chat.
That seemingly minor moment triggers much of the book’s action, with the writer unnerved by not having a way to call his wife and daughter, check the time, or use GPS to get to Thomas’ house, though he knows the way. Once there, he’s unwilling to confess that his phone doesn’t work and tries to fend off the most meaningful parts of their conversation until he can get a new one, while Thomas relentlessly pushes forward on the theory that they’re both there and talking, so why delay?
To say too much more would be to spoil what Lerner — who has been a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his poetry — has in mind for this story, which touches on the nature of both recorded and mediated reality, as well as the characters’ relationships with one another.
Lerner, who has a Master of Fine Arts degree in literary arts from Brown, is clearly in his element describing the writer’s trek through downtown Providence and up College Hill to Thomas’ home. And he manages to make the writer, Thomas and Max all believable people, each responding to the domestic and career pressures that face him.
In this he’s aided by Numrich, who reads well despite pronouncing “Weybosset” and “Westminster” streets with an emphasis on the first syllable rather than the second. He uses a credible Central European accent for Thomas and a softer voice than the main character’s for Max, helping make them three-dimensional in a way that reading them on the page never could.
“The Complex: A Novel”
By Karan Mahajan, read by Neil Shah. Penguin Audio, 14¾ hours, $26.
This sprawling tale by a Brown University professor of literary arts tells the story of the descendants of a prominent Indian politician who live in a family compound in Delhi. This is no loving, warm group; the Chopra clan is seething with ambition, anger, and sexual tension that sometimes boils over in awful ways.
The backdrop is the India of the 1980s and ’90s, and the religious and social schisms that rocked it. The 1984 assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the anti-Sikh riots that followed it play key roles. So do the complaints of majority Hindus that they are being pushed aside as politicians cater to minority Muslims, and the political upheaval that stems from this bitterness — points you may find echoing today’s climate in the United States.
Yet this is first and foremost a story of individuals. The women, men and children of the Chopra clan each have their place in it, sometimes helping one another, sometimes doing terrible things; struggling and quarreling and learning to survive one another. Or not.
Mahajan, who’s been a finalist for the National Book Award, knows how to keep things moving while balancing the personal and the political. And Shah, an Audiofile Earphones Award winner, maximizes the story’s impact by varying accents and timbres to make each character distinct from the next — no easy feat in a tale of this dimension. It’s a bravura performance well worth a listen.
“The Midnight Show: A Novel”
By Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne, read by Mia Hutchinson-Shaw, Hillary Huber, Marni Penning, Lisa Flanagan, Lee Osorio, Dan Bittner, Sean Patrick Hopkins, Sophie Amoss, Vas Eli, Barton Caplan, Nayib Felix, and a full cast. Random House Audio, 10 hours, $22. Available through all Rhode Island public libraries.
Lillian Martin is an original cast member of a fictional “Saturday Night Live” clone called “The Midnight Show” in the early 1980s, a star with a huge potential. Then she vanishes one night following the show’s after party. And four decades later, Rolling Stone journalist Madeline Cohen sets out to learn what really happened to Lillian, in the process uncovering more than she’d bargained for.
That’s the premise of this novel that feels out the era’s drug-fueled, misogynistic comedy climate, as well as the cast’s bed-hopping and the cutthroat culture of the show’s writer’s room. It all feels both authentic and a little well-worn, and not much of it is funny (except for a continuing bit in which a cast member repeatedly mangles Cohen’s first name in fresh ways).
But there’s a slow-burning twist that helps redeem the story. And Kelly and Thorne make Madeline a smart, dogged, ethical journalist, which you don’t see much of in fiction these days. I appreciate that.
What really helps the book are the narrators who bring the characters to life. And one of the best is Sean Patrick Hopkins, who grew up in Portsmouth, North Kingstown, Westerly, and Charlestown, and graduated from the Prout School in Wakefield. He’s also appeared on stage at Trinity Rep, Theatre by the Sea, and the Colonial Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park in Westerly.
Hopkins, who’s been narrating audiobooks since 2014, plays Bobby Everett, a fellow cast member and boyfriend of Lillian’s. His Bobby is smarmy and superior without going over the top, informing Madeline of his guru’s pronouncements in a tone that suggests he thinks she’ll really care. Along with his recent reading of “This Story Might Save Your Life,” it points to his status as a master of the craft.
Alan Rosenberg is a retired executive editor of The Providence Journal and has been reviewing audiobooks for more than two decades. Reach him at .
