An interesting Magical Realism Audiobook

I was fresh out of audiobooks for my new iPod with it's gaping 16 gigs of space hunkering for good books to fill it. It isn't easy finding a good book to read without expending a bit of energy in the search and often a lot of money. This is even more true with audiobooks since many are free and often worth that price.

So it was a delightful surprise to discover the Allen David Justice "The Communion of the Saint" audiobook. It's free AND a very good read. It's read by the author which can be a disaster but Justice did an entertaining and technically proficient job of it.

The audiobook came at the perfect time. I was knee-deep in dilemmas with my own writing and taking it far too seriously for its own good or mine. You know, that "what does it all mean ultimately to the universe" do-loop that writers can get trapped in.

So Justice was very refreshing and it taught me again (I keep forgetting this) that a good read without any attempt to define every metaphysical problem can be such a refreshing thing.

I'm suspicious (yet drawn to) Magical Realism. I sit there with my cap gun cocked waiting for the first spot where an author goes over the edge and when Justice's character found herself not at present-day St. Alban's church but in the middle of a Roman battle....well I held my breath.

God bless Justice. He pulled it off and for the rest of the novel I knew I could relax and just enjoy the ride.

If you are looking for a nice diversion from taking yourself too seriously, give this audiobook a try. The quality of the writing is often superb to the point of winding back the "tape" and re-listening to certain phrasing and sentence structuring.

I sent him a note of compliments and he replied with delight.