Three Very Different Roads Through Fiction

About this episode

Alan Minskoff joins Jo Reed to discuss three distinct works of fiction in audio, exploring themes of grief, longing, and environmental tensions.

From haunted New Jersey suburbs to melancholy Irish landscapes to the contested wilds of the American West, Alan Minskoff joins host Jo Reed to discuss three sharply different works of fiction in audio. Tom Perrotta’s Ghost Town, narrated by Robert Petkoff, blends grief, adolescence, and the supernatural through Petkoff’s nuanced character work, while Derbhle Crotty and Darragh Shannon bring quiet emotional precision to The News From Dublin, evoking the atmosphere of longing and displacement in Colm Tóibín’s story collection. The conversation closes with Taylor Brown’s Wolvers, read by Ramiz Monsef, whose vivid performance captures the tensions between ranchers, militias, environmentalists, and wolves in the modern West. These audiobooks may share little besides the genre of fiction, but each narrator creates a fully realized world listeners can step into and stay with long after the final chapter. Audiobooks Discussed: Ghost Town by Tom Perrotta, read by Robert Petkoff (Simon & Schuster Audio) The News From Dublin: Stories by Colm Tóibín, read by Derbhle Crotty and Darragh Shannon (Simon & Schuster Audio) Wolvers by Taylor Brown, read by Ramiz Monsef (Recorded Books Inc.)…

People in this episode

Host: Jo Reed

Guest: Alan Minskoff

Topics covered

• fiction
• audiobooks
• narration
• emotional themes
• landscapes
• supernatural

Keywords

• audiobooks
• fiction
• narration
• Tom Perrotta
• Colm Tóibín
• Taylor Brown
• supernatural
• emotional precision

Sponsors

HarperCollins Focus, HarperCollins Christian Publishing

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Ghost Town, The News From Dublin, Wolvers

More episodes of Behind the Mic With Kirkus Reviews

• Finding the Voice · June 11, 2026 · 25 min
• Navigating The Divorce by Freida McFadden · June 5, 2026 · 17 min
• Still Here: Three Memoirs That Don’t Look Away · May 28, 2026 · 26 min
• Working Lives in Three Audiobooks · May 21, 2026 · 29 min
• Exploring Kathryn Stockett’s The Calamity Club · May 15, 2026 · 13 min
• Horror, Held Close · May 14, 2026 · 24 min