The Christmas Sweater
Beck channels his softer side to offer a Christmas parable featuring 12-year old Eddie, whose hopes for a shiny new bicycle for Christmas are dashed when he finds an ugly, handmade sweater waiting for him under the tree. Eddie pitches a fit, dismaying his hardworking single mother—but will he regret his ingratitude when older? Naturally. There are no surprises in this contrived story, which is further doomed by Beck's ham-handed and histrionic reading. The maudlin material would have been better served by a seasoned narrator capable of conveying believability and evoking genuine feeling.A Threshold hardcover. (Oct.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.