I am always surprised when I meet an attorney who is an avid reader but who never listens to audiobooks on an iPhone. They are really missing out. A great voice actor can make a book come alive. And while that is enough of a justification, the biggest advantage for me is that one can "read" while driving, doing chores around the house, cutting the grass, exercising ... it is a great way to multitask. If you haven't tried an iPhone audiobook yet, check out a store like Audible (owned by Amazon).
And if you are looking for a good audiobook, I have a recommendation for you. Last week, Connecticut divorce attorney Wendy Walker released a novel called All is Not Forgotten, and I listened to it last week and over the weekend at the beach. It was fantastic.
Wendy and I went to law school together at Georgetown, and we were even in a study group together during our first year. Thus, I've known for a long time how smart and clever she is. You'll definitely see that yourself when you read this book. Indeed, I'm not the only one to love her book; as reported by Variety, Reese Witherspoon's production company (known for “Wild,” “Gone Girl” and “Hot Pursuit") bought the film rights last year, and I understand that a screenplay is in the works. Of course, you should read the book before you see the movie — movies are great, but always leave out so many interesting details.
The book is a psychological thriller crime novel. It is full of surprises, including one that begins at the beginning — the story is told from the perspective of a narrator, but you don't learn who the narrator is for several chapters. I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't say much more other than the story is about a rape and the implications of erasing a (traumatic) memory. It is full of twists and turns that keep you guessing whodunit until the end. You can see and hear Wendy discuss the structure of this novel (without any spoilers) in this YouTube video:
The audiobook version was especially good because it has a celebrity reader who is perfect for the role: Dylan Baker (IMDB link). If the name is not familiar to you, click the IMDB link and I suspect that you will recognize his face, perhaps from the Spiderman movies or the TV show The Good Wife. I most identify him with one of my favorite TV series, The Americans, in which Baker played a key role during the most recent season. The narrator of All is Not Forgotten is smart and somewhat elitist and arrogant, and Dylan Baker is perfect. He doesn't just read the book, he essentially plays that role, almost like a radio drama. I don't know who Reese Witherspoon will cast in the movie, but Dylan Baker would be great. (Reese Witherspoon told Wendy that she wants to play the mother character in the movie version of the book; I can definitely see Witherspoon playing that role very well.)
Wendy told me that authors typically are not involved in the creation of the audiobook, but her publisher did consult Wendy about using Dylan Baker, and she knew that he would be perfect. Wendy told me: "He has done many audio books and has a voice that most people recognize immediately. He is a character actor as well, so I had no doubt that he would be able to get into the head of my narrator and become him. This is very important with a first person narrative." She told me that his reading of the book was "brilliant" and "his vision really brought the characters to life." I agree.
I asked Wendy how her training and experience as a lawyer impacted her writing this book. She told me that her legal training helped her to map out the story meticulously, with colored index cards and a master sheet which kept track of what was happening when. "Because the plot involves multiple characters and an intricate plot that depends as much on the psychological elements that are revealed as it does on the events that occur, the careful layering was essential to making it work. I credit the years of [legal] training to analyze, break down issues, and build an argument with my ability to execute this vision for the structure of the novel. Also, my work as a family law attorney and a trained guardian ad litem gave me a deeper knowledge of psychology, which I utilize in the novel."
If you listen to the audio version of this book, the last chapter is a short interview with Wendy. I love it when a book does this because when I finish reading a good book (or watching a good movie or a good TV show), I find myself craving more. Thus, I'll often go to my computer and search for reviews or anything else to get just a little more insight into the creative work. It was great fun to go from the last few words of the book directly into listening to Wendy talk about it, all without having to do anything on my iPhone other than keep listening.
Whether you read the paper version of this book or enjoy the fantastic audio version like I did, I encourage you to put All is Not Forgotten on your summer reading list. It's an engaging story, told in an interesting way, with lots of great characters.
Click here for All is Not Forgotten on Amazon (which also gives a link to the Audible version).
