This is great radio filled with so many beautiful moments. It manages to be incredibly emotional while at the same time being almost shockingly unsentimental. And that Jeanine is a radio novice works towards making the piece feel totally new and fresh (even the fact that she felt uncomfortable getting close enough to her subject to mic him perfectly has a kind of symbolic, poetic value). It’s a kind of literary radio, too-- the way it goes back and forth between the narration and the actualities, always contextualizing and adding to what we’ve heard. In this way, the story builds, becoming so surprising as it goes that in the course of listening, most of my expectations were totally defied. Yet like many of the best stories told, it ends with forgiveness.
Review of Family Sentence
Jonathan Goldstein
Posted on November 27, 2004 at 11:30 AM
This is great radio filled with so many beautiful moments. It manages to be incredibly emotional while at the same time being almost shockingly unsentimental. And that Jeanine is a radio novice works towards making the piece feel totally new and fresh (even the fact that she felt uncomfortable getting close enough to her subject to mic him perfectly has a kind of symbolic, poetic value). It’s a kind of literary radio, too-- the way it goes back and forth between the narration and the actualities, always contextualizing and adding to what we’ve heard. In this way, the story builds, becoming so surprising as it goes that in the course of listening, most of my expectations were totally defied. Yet like many of the best stories told, it ends with forgiveness.