Hey, Eddie, can you get us a ride," starts the Bruce Springsteen song, "Meeting Across the River," from his classic 1975 album Born to Run
. With its spare lyrics and the moody trumpet playing in the background, Springsteen's song tells the tale of two smalltime losers out for one last try at the brass ring, and provides the inspiration behind the 20 stories found in this imaginative and enjoyable anthology. The 16 readers assembled for this recording are as eclectic as the stories they narrate. Stefan Rudnicki, who also produced the program, brings a feeling of doomed noir to Wallace Stroby's moving "Lovers in the Cold." Maxwell Caufield does an excellent job with Paul Charles's amusing Irish story "In the Midnight Hour"; and Harlan Ellison supplies a rich, no-holds-barred reading of Peter David's inspired fantasy, "Killing Time by the River Styx," while Cara Black's "Mosquito Incense," set in Japan, is given just the right sense of melancholia by Moira Quirk. Other notable readers include John Rubinstein, Arte Johnson, Gabrielle de Cuir, Richard Brewer and a most effective Orson Scott Card, reading Jessica Kaye's "Drink to Long Life." From New Jersey to the afterlife, these are 20 rides worth taking. (Nov.)
