The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates

Synopsis:
A close look at several generations of a family living in Niagara Falls, begun by a woman widowed by suicide on her wedding day who married one of the men who helped her look for her dead husband’s body.

Review:
I don’t want to waste much time on a review of The Falls at all, because quite frankly it bored me. The characters were well-drawn, the prose thoughtful, the situations dramatic, but none of it added up to a damn story. I didn’t know why I was supposed to care about these petty, frustrating people.

I will mention that I was listening to the audiobook, and that narrator Anna Fields’s vocal range is astonishing. I would’ve given up long before if it weren’t for her skill in voicing all the different characters with such inventiveness and subtlety.