Waiting for Columbus by Thomas Trofimuk (Audiobook Review)

Audiobook Reviews from Audiobook-Heaven

Title: Waiting For Columbus
Author: Thomas Trofimuk
Narrator: Grover Gardner
Copyright: 2009, Blackstone Audio
Duration: 10 hours, 15 minutes
Genres: general fiction, historical, trauma
Filed in: Audiobook Reviews
Review copy provided by Blackstone Audio.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Found in the treacherous Strait of Gibraltar, a man who answers only to the name of Christopher Columbus is delivered to a mental institution in Sevilla, Spain. Nurse Consuela, a lonely young woman searching for love, who listens to his fantastical tales of adventure and romance day after day, tries desperately to make some sense of why this man has been locked up. Waiting for Columbus vividly and tenderly explores the fragility of the mind when faced with incomprehensible pain and a timely look at how the psychological reverberations of terrorism continue long after the blast.
©2009 Thomas Trofimuk; (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Waiting for Columbus is a well thought out and beautifully written novel. It is almost as if there are three separate stories at work here. Thomas Trofimuk weaves the three threads together like a fine silk scarf as the novel progresses toward what proves to be a shattering conclusion.
A man is pulled from the water and taken to a mental hospital in Seville, Spain. He believes he is Christopher Columbus. Over a period of several weeks, Christopher entrances his nurse, Consuela, with stories of how he planned his voyage across the western sea, and how he convinced Ferdinand and Isabella to finance him. His stories are very in-depth and very convincing, except for the fact that they contain such elements as televisions, telephones, Mozart, and Heineken beer. Christopher is seemingly unaware of the inconsistencies in his tales. Thomas Trofimuk ingeniously makes Christopher’s stories take on increasingly modern tones throughout the narrative. Queen Isabella’s personal guards, for instance, begin to resemble secret service agents with ear pieces and handguns. You can actually feel the past catching up with poor Christopher, no matter how he tries to evade it.
The second thread is the real Columbus, as we see him through the stories of Christopher. I’m not an expert on the life of Columbus so I can’t really say how factual the stories are, but they are intriguing and you can sense that Waiting for Columbus will reach it’s climax when Columbus finally sets sail.
On top of all that, we have Emil, an agent of Interpol, who is tracking down a missing person. Of course it’s not hard to see that Christopher is the man he is tracking. The excitement and tension build as Emil gets closer and closer to the mental hospital, and all the while he is giving us little glimpses of the tragic event that put Christopher in the state that he’s in.
Grover Gardner did a fantastic job narrating Waiting for Columbus. He’s always good, but the emotion in his voice, especially at the critical moment, put this book over the top. I read an interview recently where Gardner said he wanted to redo a part of this audiobook because he felt that he had gone too far in interpreting the author’s work. That’s a bunch of nonsense. I think if a narrator is moved by the book he is reading, it can only enhance the effect for the listener.
Excellentwriting and excellent narration, this is one of the best audiobooks I’ve read so far this year.

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If you like this audiobook review, you can purchase the audiobook here:
Get “Waiting for Columbus” by Thomas Trofimuk (Unabridged Audiobook) from Blackstone Audio.

This audiobook review is based on the unabridged audiobook.
Audiobook review by Steven Brandt
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