Thursday, July 23, 1998

SLAVES IN THE FAMILY

Edward Ball, southern born and northern educated, begins Slaves in the Family, his impressive family history, with a telling joke regarding his ancestors' legacy as former slave owners. "There are five things we don't talk about in the Ball family," his father would say. "Religion, sex, death, money and the Negroes."

"What does that leave to talk about," his mother once asked.

Ball, a former columnist for the Village Voice, bucked family tradition with this account of immigration, both voluntary and forced. He traces his family's origins from England to the Colonies. It was in pre-Revolutionary America that it became immediately clear fortunes could only be made upon the backs of others. By following leads to Sierra Leone and across America, he also identifies the blood relationship between his family and those of their former slaves.

The lives of owners and slaves were so interwoven that Ball could not recount the messy past of his forebears without allotting equal space to those who planted their Carolina Gold rice and occasionally bore their children. The very act of writing this book served as obvious apology to their memory and their issue.

The author uses the personal to address larger themes. His family serves as a microcosm for America. Their story, and those who slaved for them, is at the heart of race relations then and now. By revealing the sins of his fathers, Ball forces the big picture into a smaller, more personal context.

Considering that only half of the original text made it to audio, this is a very clear abridgement. Ball is a flavorful writer, and little of his voice was excised. However, greatly missed from the written material are the revealing photographs and paintings of Balls, past and present.

Unlike most authors, Ball is at ease behind the microphone. A confident narrator, he is more polished than most, with the cultured manner and crisp diction of the well educated. He has mostly eradicated his Southern drawl, though a hint of Georgia haunts his words. This is to the listener's advantage, as he resurrects images of the Old South while quoting those he interviewed.

Ball successfully ages his voice, manages a decent Gullah accent and imparts infectious bonhomie into a cousin with a big and friendly personality. He is even able to belt out a few lines of an old spiritual. It is a trade-off, of course. One must sacrifice some of the detailed poignancy of the uncut text to hear Ball tell his story. The exchange is more than fair.

Need a jolt of Sinatra speak? How about a little Rat Pack philosophy to get you through the day? The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin', by Bill Zehme, is a bible of ring-a-ding lingo and nightclub etiquette even feminist chicks can view fondly from a 40-year distance. It's all here: Sinatra on style, etiquette, and how to treat the ladies ("You have to gift them.") His personal history, including a romantic rundown, is as much a part of this amusingly told bio as his macho and rigidly moral code of ethics. It's too bad Blackstone didn't find a livelier reader to capture the zesty writing and ring-a-ding lingo of his lighthearted book.

Emerson's voice is extremely deep and his manner too lackluster for the material. The combination results in an understated delivery hovering close to monotone. His sense of timing is sufficient to capture both Zehme's and Sinatra's humor, but he certainly does not enhance it.

ME AND MY SHADOWS

Judy's "other daughter" and Liza's little sister, Lorna Luft, talks about her talented but addiction-riddled family in Me and My Shadows.

Her prose is a little precious. As she enters into the more harrowing aspects of life with a pill-popping mother, however, the style becomes less darling. She deserves credit for not sinking her story with self-pity, as she overcame a truly tragic childhood in which she became the chief caregiver in the Garland household.

Luft was forced to deal with her mother's addictions, and then her own, which she discusses honestly, but without embarrassing detail.

A stage and screen actress with a well-modulated voice, Luft is even more emotionally compelling a narrator than a writer. It is heartbreaking to hear her tremulous voice describe her mother's funeral, and you cannot help hearing bitterness as she describes disloyal and dangerous sycophants.

Though you do miss some family background by listening to this abridgement, most of her story remains intact. The printed version, however, is peppered with family photographs as revealing as her words.

STILL ME

Hopes were not high at the onset of Still Me. I expected Christopher Reeve's audio to be maudlin and depressing, as he sounds sad and frail, his ventilator wheezing faintly in the background. He garners nothing but admiration, however, because by the end of this production his physical problems fade next to a spunky optimism. Also, the man may sound weak, but he is still an actor with clear diction and an innate sense of timing.

Reeve wrote this as both an autobiography and an explanation of the paralysis caused by a horseback riding accident in 1995. The medical aspect of his story is intriguing because this performer with no medical knowledge is now an encyclopedia of techniques and research. It is that resilience that makes his story worthwhile. And he tells it concisely, if a bit hygienically.

Many of the childhood memories included in the printed text were excised for the audio, which focuses on Reeve's injuries and current life as a director and advocate for people with spinal cord injuries. The abridgement is palatable, but the listener really does lose the impact of his photographs. The printed book is chock full of Reeve in costume for many parts, Reeve as a robust athlete, and finally, in rehabilitation.

The photographs may be striking reminders of life's vagaries, but so is his much changed voice, especially to those who remember how this former Superman portrayer once sounded.