Jackson's Dilemma

Narrator Juliet Mills approaches this novel at a brisk, efficient clip, doing her best to enliven an otherwise heavy text. The plot revolves around an impending wedding, which has brought together a number of unsympathetic two-dimensional characters who do little more than complain and snipe at one another. The first cassette passes with little or no action, and then suddenly the bride-to-be has disappeared. Sadly, by this time, the listener can understand why the woman would want to escape the stifling environment. Mills provides an adequate reading of a slow-moving book, but sometimes her voice seems too shrill for the recording. The book itself, for all its wordy description, offers the listener very little. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine