John Shea (10/98 Reservation Road)
Excerpt from Hartford Courant 10/11/98: John Shea
Writer's Reputation Counts The Most In Readers' Book Choices
October 11, 1998
Here's a look at recent releases (all are abridged unless otherwise noted): ``Reservation Road'' by John Burnham Schwartz, read by John Shea, Stanley Tucci and Anne Twomey (Random House Audio, $18, two cassettes, 3 hours)
© Hartford Courant
Excerpt from Chicago Tribune 1/24/99: John Shea
FAMILY MATTERS RESERVATION ROAD
By John Burnham...January 24, 1999
By John Burnham Schwartz, Random House Audio, 3 hours, abridged, $18. Read by John Shea, Stanley Tucci and Anne Twomey.
....
This is a high-caliber production that deserves credit for selecting a cast of narrators who bring not just artistry but realism to this chilling yet beautiful story.
© Chicago Tribune
Excerpt from Audiofile Magazine 2/99: John Shea
RESERVATION ROAD: Earphones Award Winner
[Published: FEB/MAR 99]
by John Burnham Schwartz | Read by John Shea, Stanley Tucci, Anne Twomey Mystery & Suspense • 3 hrs. • Abridged • © 1998
The aftermath of a fatal hit-and-run is perceived through the eyes of three eyewitnesses. Ethan and Grace Learner, played by Stanley Tucci and Anne Twomey, have lost their son in the accident. Dwight Arno, interpreted by John Shea, had been driving with his own son when he crashed into the Learner boy, his son's schoolmate.
....
Narrating quietly and close to the mike, the readers provide more dimensionality for their roles than the writer has. In short, this is an example of a production that improves upon the book. Y.R. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine
© Audiofile Magazine
Excerpt from Random House 10/3/06: John Shea
Reservation Road
By John Burnham Schwartz, Stanley Tucci, Anne Twomey, John Shea
A riveting novel of feeling and suspense in which grief and punishment become tragically intertwined. At the close of a beautiful summer day near the quiet Connecticut town where they live, the Learner family-Ethan and Grace, their children, Josh and Emma-stop at a gas station on their way home from a concert. Josh Learner, lost in a ten-year-old’s private world, is standing at the edge of the road when a car comes racing around the bend. He is hit and instantly killed. The car speeds away. From this moment forward, Reservation Road becomes a harrowing countdown to the confrontation between two very different men. The hit-and-run driver is a small-town lawyer named Dwight Arno, a man in desperate need of a second chance. Dwight is also the father of a ten-year-old boy, who was asleep in the car the night Josh Learner was killed. Now Dwight must decide whether to run from his crime or to pay the price for what he did.
....
In a gripping narrative woven from the voices of Ethan, Dwight, and Grace, Reservation Road tells the story of two ordinary families facing an extraordinary crisis-a book that reads like a thriller but opens up a world rich with psychological nuance and emotional wisdom.
© Random House
Excerpt from Ottawa Citizen 10/28/07: John Shea
Reservation Road is wrenching
Janice Kennedy, Published: Sunday, October 28, 2007
Timed with the film release, a short audio version of the novel is newly available from Random House (3 hours abridged/3 CDs, $21). Bolstered by strong dramatic narration from three veteran actors, it is undeniably worth a listen. Stanley Tucci is the vengeance-seeking father who has lost his son to a hit-and-run driver; Anne Twomey is his wife, a woman emotionally eviscerated by the tragedy; and John Shea is the tortured driver who has set the whole terrible play into motion. All three deliver with wrenching and understated power.
© Ottawa Citizen