He doesn't get the idea of inflection. Nor is Malone a big fan of Burt Reynolds, who won a 1998 APA Audie award for his reading of Erskine Caldwell's God's Little Acre. He makes them all sound like dumb blonds. Then there's JoBeth Williams, of Poltergeist fame. But her voice gets really dramatic anyway.
Some authors insist on reading their own books.
He wishes John Irving and Robert Parker, in particular, would leave the reading to others. It doesn't help that Irving also insists on releasing his books only in unabridged form, says Malone. A star is born. Gradually, the industry is making its own celebrities. He develops a character by voice patterns.