De Haven, Tom. It's Superman.

DE HAVEN, Tom. It's Superman. Read by Scott Brick. 14 cds. 16.5 hrs. Blackstone Audiobooks. 2006. 0-7861-6133-7. $99.00. Vinyl; plot, author, reader notes. A

Before he became the Man of Steel and was able to leap tall buildings and so on, Clark Kent was a naive, insecure farm boy, often tongue-tied and with a serious inferiority complex. This novel brings us slowly and meticulously through the young man's metamorphosis into the super hero. In the story set in the post-depression and early WW II period, the listener meets Kent's contemporaries and most influential contacts. There's free-lance photographer Willie Berg, who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and becomes a fugitive. There's Lois Lane, ambitious and often recklessly driven, who smokes, drinks, and takes lovers. And then there's the wily, power-hungry Lex Luthor, whose rise from an oily corrupt city politician to a mega-crime lord fuels much of the story.

This is a thrilling re-invention of a pop culture legend, and Brick reads with great comic book panache. He employs long conversational pauses for dramatic effect and makes pulp fiction a pure delight. A few picky annoyances: early on, De Haven has Willie and Clark emerging from Central Park and coming to Grand Army Plaza--now, any Brooklynite, like myself, knows that Grand Army Plaza is in Brooklyn just outside Prospect Park, while Central Park is in Manhattan. Brick also mispronounces the Yiddish word "schmaltz." Excessive violence and bloodshed. Miles Klein, Frisco, TX

A--Recommended for advanced students and adults. This code will help librarians and teachers working in high schools where there are honors and advanced placement students. This also will help extend KLIATT's usefulness in public libraries.