4thace reviewed The Angel on the Roof by Russell Banks
A gifted storyteller exploring dark places
5 stars
In this collection of stories there is a fair amount of violence, addiction, deceit, regret, and death contained in tales of working class life. There are moments of realization, though it seems as though these might not have gotten through to all the characters at the same time they explode for the reader. I picked this up because I remembered hearing the story "The Moor" read on the radio, a good example of a tale about the burden and gift of memory re-emerging only after decades. Not all these stories end in that kind of epiphany though most have ingenious telling moments somewhere along the way. Some share characters and settings, others play with the same themes but branch off in slightly different directions. I felt as though every one of these selected stories had something valuable to offer me, a place deeply felt, though there were some I admired …
In this collection of stories there is a fair amount of violence, addiction, deceit, regret, and death contained in tales of working class life. There are moments of realization, though it seems as though these might not have gotten through to all the characters at the same time they explode for the reader. I picked this up because I remembered hearing the story "The Moor" read on the radio, a good example of a tale about the burden and gift of memory re-emerging only after decades. Not all these stories end in that kind of epiphany though most have ingenious telling moments somewhere along the way. Some share characters and settings, others play with the same themes but branch off in slightly different directions. I felt as though every one of these selected stories had something valuable to offer me, a place deeply felt, though there were some I admired a lot more than others.
The audiobook version read by Robert Fass was a pleasure to listen to, clocking in at about eighteen hours in all. I think it might bring out more of the emotion than what I might easily get from the printed page.