Echoes and parodies of complex psychosexual antecedents, including Freud's analysis of Dora, the Salem witch trials and parts of The Malleus Maleficarum
, underlieJulavits's third novel. The novel's complex structure (it spans 15 years and weaves back and forth in time) creates listening problems that tax even a skilled performer like Shelly Frasier. Mary Veal, who may or may not have been kidnapped as a teen returns to West Salem, Mass., years later for her mother's funeral. Characters sound too similar: Mary sounds too much like her teen self and the two male characters, Mary's first therapist and the alleged kidnapper have almost identical voices. The same problem conflates Mary's sisters, Regina and Gaby. Frasier does a better job with Mary's well-to-do Aunt Helen and Roz Biedelman, Mary's second therapist, who is the manipulative spider at the center of this tangled web of a novel. Enchantment
might be too much for any single reader to tackle, and a cast approach would have been a better idea. However, Frasier is an engaging performer, and the spell of this beguiling work will entrance listeners to the very end. A Doubleday hardcover (Reviews, July 10, 2006). (Feb.)
