Publishers Weekly
Edward Herrmann is perhaps best known to younger audiences as kindly, patrician Richard Gilmore on the television series Gilmore Girls. Here, Herrmann uses his same elegant persona to amplify and underscore the bittersweet nuance of Stegner's novel about a retired man who travels to his mother's Danish hometown. There are hidden reserves of frustration and displeasure in Stegner's tale, and Herrmann aptly conveys these emotions with short, sharp bursts of dialogue matched with longer, more drawn-out ellipses of exposition. He even manages a serviceable Danish accent to top off his flawless performance. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
Wallace Stegner’s is one of the most beguiling voices of [the] era, and The Spectator Bird is one of his most appealing works.”—Jane Smiley, from the introduction
“A fabulously written account of regret, memory and the subtleties and challenges of a long successful marriage. Stegner deals with the dual threads of the novel with aplomb.... A thoughtful, crystalline book.” —Matthew Spencer, The Guardian
“There are rivers undammed, desert vistas unspoiled and forests uncut in the wondrous West because of his pen.” —Timothy Egan, The New York Times
AUGUST 2010 - AudioFile
Wallace Stegner isn't much read any more, and that's a great shame. Books like THE SPECTATOR BIRD, especially in this fine reading by Edward Herrmann, offer the reward of ideas that will resonate for a long time and characters whose sometimes-epic sorrows resolve on a human scale. Herrmann's vocal characterizations are subtle but distinct—from the “Bryn Mawr” accent of the narrator's wife to the accents of the Danish women (including Karen Blixen, better known as Isak Dinesen) whom the narrator meets on a recuperative vacation. As Joseph Alston, a dutiful man whose passions are not easily engaged, Herrmann moves from resignation to frustration to love and self-knowledge. Herrmann gives a mature and complex performance of a mature and complex novel. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
