Narrated by Antony Ferguson
Imago is a rather charming story about nerdy lepidopterist Lawson Gale and his discoveries in the national park in northern Tasmania – and not all of those discoveries are butterflies. He meets Jack Brighton at the airport when Jack is returning from a work trip in Melbourne and there begins a beautiful friendship. Jack is somewhat love-starved, being openly gay in very small-town Tasmania and he’s instantly smitten by Lawson. Jack has a thing for bow ties and don’t even get him started on what he feels about suspenders (the ones which go over the shoulders – I have no information about what he thinks regarding the other kind).
Jack is a ranger at the national park where Lawson will be attempting to find a heretofore undiscovered species of butterfly and they work together closely to map out potential areas to search. At night, Jack and Lawson date. Things move quickly but this is largely explained by Lawson only planning on being in town for a week so of course, they try and pack as much in as possible in the limited time available. They have a week to decide if a long-distance relationship would be feasible so they need to spend as much time together as they can.
It seemed to me that Lawson was likely somewhere on the autism spectrum but he was not a caricature. I liked his portrayal and that he was very forthcoming about sex and his desires. He’s socially awkward but he’s not shy. Jack is neurotypical and completely taken with Lawson, finding charming what others in Lawson’s life have considered annoying quirks. I liked that whatever Lawson’s prior experience he was always comfortable being himself.
The romance part is essentially conflict-free. The pair get to know one another but there is nothing discovered which would be a deal breaker for either. Lawson even passes the “Rosemary test” by falling in love with Jack’s gorgeous border collie. They will need to sort out the long-distance thing but neither of them considers this an insurmountable obstacle.
What drives the story as they get to know one another, is the search for the new butterfly. The long novella-length suited the low angst romance and the story felt complete as it was.
As proof that not all Australians use the same slang, referring to the lawn bowls club as the “bolo” is not something I’ve heard before but it was otherwise really nice for me to enjoy a story set in Australia. I think Tasmania and the wilderness areas there shine and will be a particular treat for international listeners.
One of the reasons I chose Imago was because of a successful experience before with Antony Ferguson. Because he is English and English folk tend to have less problems with performing an Australian accent, I had high hopes. However, overall, I did not enjoy the narration.
Mr. Ferguson’s Australian accents were very good but for reasons which escape me, both Lawson and Jack think in an English accent. The exact same one in fact. Given the story was told from their alternating first person perspectives, I did not understand this narration choice. Would not Lawson sound like Lawson all the time? (And Jack always sound like Jack?) Apart from generally being odd, it also had the effect of making it hard to remember whose POV I was in at times, particularly in sections where there was little dialogue.
Also, whether in dialogue or narrative, Mr. Ferguson’s voice often sounded a bit computer generated, as if he was a voice on a SatNav, with odd jerks and pauses, as if a program had put the words together to form a sentence, rather than a person. Sometimes this was not entirely inappropriate – Lawson is not always a smooth talker but because it happened all through the book, it did not feel like a character choice.
I was a little confused as to why Jack was driving at “a hundred miles an hour down the highway” – we use kilometres here and the author is Australian so knows this well. I have the ebook so I checked the text. The book refers to “a hundred k’s an hour”. It’s disappointing the error wasn’t picked up in edits. It’s a small thing but it’s an Australian story and it should be accurate. Perhaps I was just grumpy overall though and I’m nitpicking here though.
On a happier note, Mr. Ferguson does say “Melbourne” correctly and his Australian accent was indeed very good. If only it had been a little smoother. I also liked that he had a distinctly different voice for Jack and Lawson and when they were talking to one another it was easy to tell who was who. The other cast members were also well distinguished.
Technically the production values were fine but the issues I had with the accent of the narrative sections and the “SatNav” voice meant that the narration for Imago was a letdown.
Kaetrin
Buy Imago by N.R. Walker on Amazon
I have to agree with you about Antony Ferguson’s narration. I’ve listened to him a handful of times and have had pretty much the same reaction. He has a lovely voice, but his performances have always fallen short for me; there’s something missing – you can always tell it’s a performance and it never feels like natural speech. I’ve become a big fan of NR Walker’s over the past couple of years and fortunately, she’s self-publishing some of her books in audio and using different narrators. Tantor seem to have signed Mr. Ferguson up for every book of hers they’re producing from now on – probably because he can do a decent Australian accent – but that doesn’t compensate for the overall sense of disconnect I get whenever I listen to him.
It’s strange because it could easily be *so much better*. Use a consistent accent for first person narrations and speak in the narrative sections like you do in the dialogue – voila!