The Lost Girl

Review [Lawrence was] a writer with an extraordinary sense of the physical world, of the color and texture and shape of things, for whom the body was alive and the problems of the body insistent and important. -- "Virginia Woolf" Product Description Perhaps D. H. Lawrence's most beautiful, thoroughly contemporary love story, The Lost Girl charts the journey of a woman caught between two worlds and two lives: one mired in convention in industrial England, the other promising sensual liberation in the vibrant landscape of Italy. Alvina Houghton, the daughter of a widowed Midlands draper, comes of age just as her father's business is failing. In a desperate attempt to regain his fortune and secure his daughter's proper upbringing, James Houghton buys a theater. Among the traveling performers he employs is Naples-born Cicio, a vaudeville dancer who draws Alvina into a dance of seduction, awakening her desire as she defies her stifling upper-class life for a fleeting chance at freedom. About the Author David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930), novelist, short-story writer, poet, critic, playwright, and essayist, was one of the most important and controversial figures of twentieth-century English literature. His works confront the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization and are notable for their passionate intensity and for a sensuality that centers on the erotic. Though his opinions earned him enemies, persecution, and censorship during his lifetime, he is now recognized as an artistic visionary.Johanna Ward (a.k.a. Kate Reading) is an Audie Award-winning narrator and has received numerous Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine. She is also a theater actor in the Washington, DC, area and has been a member of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company since 1987. Her work onstage has been recognized by the Helen Hayes Awards Society, among others. She and her husband live in Hyattsville, Maryland, with their two children. From AudioFile Part of the magic of audiobooks is that they allow one to enjoy works that might be difficult to digest in print form. So it is (for this listener, at least) with Lawrence's tale of a young woman's quest to find herself; it might seem endless in print, but narrator Johanna Ward makes the journey pleasant. She takes the listener through Alvina Houghton's struggles with a dreaming father, sickly mother, and rejected suitors. Ward's characterizations give the listener vocal snapshots of the key players. Perhaps the most satisfying part of Alvina's journey to Italy is not her romance, but the spark that Ward brings to that country's language. J.J.B. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine