Review: The Thirteenth Tale (Audio)

The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel (Abridged)

by Diane Setterfield, Ruthie Henshall (Narrator), Lynn Redgrave (Narrator)

Publishers Summary:

Settle down to enjoy a rousing good ghost story with Diane Setterfield's debut novel, The Thirteenth Tale. Setterfield has rejuvenated the genre with this closely plotted, clever foray into a world of secrets, confused identities, lies, and half-truths. She never cheats by pulling a rabbit out of a hat; this atmospheric story hangs together perfectly.

There are two heroines here: Vida Winter, a famous author, whose life story is coming to an end, and Margaret Lea, a young, unworldly, bookish girl who is a bookseller in her father's shop. Vida has been confounding her biographers and fans for years by giving everybody a different version of her life, each time swearing it's the truth. Because of a biography that Margaret has written about brothers, Vida chooses Margaret to tell her story, all of it, for the first time. At their initial meeting, the conversation begins:

"You have given nineteen different versions of your life story to journalists in the last two years alone."

She [Vida] shrugged. "It's my profession. I'm a storyteller."

"I am a biographer, I work with facts."

The game is afoot and Margaret must spend some time sorting out whether or not Vida is actually ready to tell the whole truth. There is more here of Margaret discovering than of Vida cooperating wholeheartedly, but that is part of Vida's plan.

Margaret has a story of her own: she was one of conjoined twins and her sister died so that Margaret could live. She feels an otherworldly aura sometimes or a yearning for a part of her that is forever missing. Vida's story involves two wild girls--feral twins (is she one of them?)--who would have been better off being suckled by wolves. Instead, their mother and uncle, involved in things too unsavory to contemplate, combine to neglect them woefully. There's also a governess, a Doctor, a kindly housekeeper, a gardener, and another presence--a very strange presence--which Margaret perceives as a ghost at first. Making obeisance to other great ghost stories, there is a deadly fire, a beautiful old house gone to ruin, and always that presence....

The transformative power of truth informs the lives of both women by story's end, and The Thirteenth Tale is finally and convincingly told. --Valerie Ryan

Abridged: 6 CDs, 7 hours running time.

I agree with Ms Ryan's review completely. It was a fun listen. My biggest objection is with the recording itself. Ms Redgraves has such a strong variation in her voice that to be able to hear when her voice was soft, you had to turn the volume up which made other parts very loud. Both women did great jobs reading the book with its various characters. If the sound editing had been better, Had this book's recording been better, I might have rated it as "amazing". As was, I could only say "I liked it" with such marvelous characters and story line. The other problem was with the abridgement...some of the shifts seemed off balance. If I invest in another copy, it will have to be unabridged whether it be hard copy or audio.