Limbo
By: Laura Koerber / Narrated By: John Carter Aimone
Length: 4 hrs and 2 mins
A kind and heartwarming Listen
So I’ve said that about this audiobook, Limbo, by author Laura Koerber, and now I just HAVE to add: Gentle. I’m hating to use that word cuz that’s what popped up in other reviews, but hey, there’s no way around this, it’s truly a calm and gentle Listen.
Alyse is a teen-aged girl, now dead of brain cancer, and for some reason she and a host of characters were not bad enough for Hell, but somehow were not good enough for Heaven. Limbo.
And Alyse hates it. Her one gratitude? That she died in nice pajamas and with a bathrobe, unlike the other inhabitants, many who now sport hospital gowns, complete with open backsides. Which all is preferable to the Naked Man, an older gentleman who slept in the buff whilst alive, and who died whilst in the buff as well.
We’re introduced to each of Limbo’s inhabitants. Among them are Trey, whose backside reveals the bedsores from a prolonged death. There’s The Chinese Lady, the above-mentioned Naked Man, a Preacher, Emmanuel the African man from Ghana who sings sings sings. And there’s the Filipina woman who lives in an old time Saloon (This cast’s Limbo looks like the set of an old Hollywood Western).
There’s only card games at the Saloon, or Church once in a while, tho’ the Preacher would deeeearly love to make every moment of the day about a sermon. They’re all at odds and ends, whiling away long and empty hours, cut off from whatever love was in their lives, unable to see the people they loved, stuck with only memories of a Life no longer theirs.
Seriously, Gentle! Cuz the writing sloooowly goes through each character and how they’re shaped, and how they decide they’re going to continue to exist in this odd Eternity, live through it. How close can they get to one another? How much are they willing to share? Where will they find joy to last Eternity?
There’s a shindig, there’s a shaping of a sort of a unity, a sort of acceptance, and we get to see the choices each character makes: How to live when you’re going to be dead for a really, really, reeeeally long time.
At first I was leery of John Carter Aimone’s narration. An earlier reviewed audiobook of Ms. Koerber’s was a male doing a female-heavy story, so I was twitchy about yet another work having subpar narration. And Aimone starts off in suuuuch a stilted fashion, but as he went on, he seemed to find his confidence, and he started swinging into really good characterizations, began individuating them seemingly without effort. Nooo, I would NOT listen to this as x1 speed; I do suggest x1.5-x1.6 (I know I know I know, I’m kinda perverse with jacking up the speed and all, but seriously: His narration flows far better at higher speeds. So sue me). Nope, this current effort of his ain’t up to Simon Vance standards, but whose is? And he does well by being just himself, so m’ twitchiness was for nothing; Bravo Mr. Aimone!
Limbo is light listening that starts having depth as it goes along, reflections experienced, choices made, Hope to be had, even in Limbo. Where does Love go when a person dies? Does it stay in the heart, and are memories and new beginnings enough to last more than a gazillion and six lifetimes?
Besides which, the ending is juuuust a triiiiifle ambiguous, leaving the listener with a few questions, a few inklings on how Eternity and the After-Death might be shaped, roads that miiiiight appear, miiiiight be taken.
Jolly decent listening.
And hey? There’s a DOG in it as well! So HUZZAH for that!!!
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