A Day No Pigs Would Die

Peck's coming-of-age memoir of his Shaker boyhood on a Vermont farm was first published in 1972. It stands the test of time well. With humor and honesty, he tells the emotionally intense story of becoming a man, "doing what's got to be done." Lincoln Hoppe's narration is disappointing. His delivery, in the voice of 13-year-old Robert, is filled with the gravity and weight of important events, but there's no modulation or variety in his voice or tempo. Every word carries the same weight regardless of whether he's relating Rob's excitement at showing his pet sow at the fair or his grief at the harsh reality of nature's laws. The humor in the story is lost in the narrator's heaviness. N.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

It's a delicate business to present a character who speaks in dialect, and Terry Bregy does a craggy and credible job as Robert's stern but loving Vermont Shaker father. Robert himself is presented with two separate voices. The first speaker is the man reliving the time during which he came to understand the joy and sorrow of life; the second is the boy who is the only surviving son of a dying father. Bregy is able to convey a sense of age and experience as well as a sense of innocence. His reading draws the listener into the continuing debate about traditional values. This is very good recording of a powerful book. L.S. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine