Candles Burning

Starred review from May 1, 2006
A mix of magic realism and Southern gothic, this stunning collaboration between King (Survivor
) and McDowell (The Elementals
), who died in 1999, moves at a hypnotic pace, like an Alabama water moccasin slipping through black water. Set in the late 1950s, the narrative paints a bitingly bittersweet portrait of Calliope "Calley" Carroll Dakin, a seven-year-old child caught in a web of deceit, secrets and the supernatural. Calley, a little girl with big ears, can communicate with departed spirits. When one character asks Calley if she can hear the dead, she replies, "Yes, ma'am... but it ain't worth hearing." Or is it? After Calley's self-made father, Joe Cane Dakin, who owns a chain of car dealerships, is murdered in New Orleans in a botched kidnapping, the spirit voices come in handy because now Calley's in danger, too. Later, Roberta Ann, Calley's Southern-belle—from-hell mama who never let her husband forget his humble origins, takes the girl to a mysterious Pensacola B&B. There Calley's talents gradually enable her to find sweet justice for her daddy and to appreciate the pure delight of nature's revenge.

September 4, 2006
MacDuffie reads this Southern gothic tale, which King completed upon her friend McDowell's death, with a honeyed Alabama drawl that rapidly grows tiresome. She puts so much effort into each word that the audiobook becomes more a personal performance than a reading of the book. Her voice, by turns exaggerated and grating, spills over the book's words, drenching them in a faux-folksy charm that overwhelms the authors' narrative. MacDuffie is technically accomplished, but her reading is simply too much, taking center stage when it should be content with remaining dutifully in the background. The result is attempted Faulkner or Tennessee Williams, more suitable to the stage than to the reading of a novel.