Things were different, then: when Erasmus Darwin Wells set off for the arctic in May of 1855, he and his companions went off into the unknown. Then, the world was not charted as it is today: vast white spaces of ice were still vast white spaces on maps.

Andrea Barrett's remarkable fourth novel, The Voyage of the Narwhal, follows Erasmus on his journey of discovery--a journey that takes place both within and without him. This is a tale of adventure, but of a very uncommon kind. Barrett, a scientist who has turned her acute mind to the more fluid demands of fiction, has created in Erasmus an uncertain traveller. He is already 40 and afraid he has wasted his life: the men he sails alongside, including the expedition's dashing and reckless commander, Zeke Voorhees, are his juniors. Perhaps Wells has been moved to venture north to shadow the impulsive Zeke, a childhood companion who takes with him the heedless love of Erasmus's sister, Lavinia. Danger, romance, distance, loss: in some ways, Andrea Barrett's novel is old fashioned, an epithet she would probably relish. Yet in setting her book 150 years ago, Barrett has managed to shed a clear white light on present day dilemmas, such as the exploitation of the wilderness and that of native peoples. She provides no easy answers, but the questions she poses continue to fascinate long after the reader has closed her majestic book. --Erica Wagner

An historical tale set in the Arctic / E Coast US in 19th Century, 29 Dec 2006
Having read many true accounts of arctic adventures I thought I read some arctic fiction. The historical references seem to be correct. However the story is not one of heroism and neither is it uplifting in any way. It is the account in the life of an analytical academic who's seen the world but lives purely within his own small world. He let's life happen to him and suffers the consequent misery. It has a touch of the Jane Austen about it with unrequited love and full skirts etc. but also has the odd clumsily written sordid paragraph which would have been best left out.

Erudite, romantic and suspenseful, 29 Oct 1999
This is a wonderfully absorbing read - erudite, romantic, suspenseful and thought-provoking. Barrett writes beautifully and her characterisation in particular is superb. She captures the highs and lows of the fateful eponymous voyage and then examines its aftermath in satisfyingly convincing style. Thoroughly enjoyable on several levels.

A marvellous blend of history and human insight, 14 Jun 1999
This book exists on many layers. It is superficially an account of a fictional, but highly plausible, account of a mission to discover the fate of the explorer Franklin, who vanished seeking the northwest passage. But it is much more than that. Barrett weaves into this narrative not only great poetry but great insight into the motivation of her two main characters, the egomaniacal leader of the expedition, who seeks personal glory above all, and the expedition's diffident naturalist, who in his own way is just as self-aggrandising. Like that other great book of external and internal voyage, White's Voss, The Narwhal succeeds in both its actual and metaphorical purposes. A remarkable read.

The Forms of Water is Andrea Barrett's second highly accomplished novel and tells the story of the bitter history of the Auberon clan. Henry Auberon is a failed property developer, who has "lost his house, his daughters, his friends, his wife" and is now "trapped in a dead-end job with no future he could see." His sister Wiloma is an emotional wreck, absorbed in "the glories of her newfound religion" following an emotionally bruising divorce. The only connection to their lost childhood spent in Paradise Valley, long ago flooded to make way for a reservoir to quench the thirst of nearby Boston, is their 80-year-old Uncle Brendan. A former monk who has lost his faith, Brendan convinces Henry to take him on one final trip to see the Auberon's remaining piece of land, which Henry will do anything to get his hands on and develop.

So begins a sometimes funny but relentlessly elegiac story of the search for a world that has been irretrievably lost. Henry, Brendan, Wiloma and their alienated children all converge on Paradise Valley, hoping to find something that will give their lives some meaning. The children pursue their parents "because they were confused and lost and destructive and incapable of caring for themselves. They were so busy chasing after a past they couldn't recover that they couldn't see what was happening right in front of their eyes." At the other extreme, Brendan wearily concludes that "it would take hours, days, for them to explain themselves to each other, and the telling would mean reliving everything. And who could stand that? Just surviving was work enough."

The Forms of Water is a beautifully written and carefully structured novel, but its bleak elegy to a lost world will not stimulate everyone as profoundly as Barrett's triumphant first novel, The Voyage of the Narwhal.--Jerry Brotton

An historical tale set in the Arctic / E Coast US in 19th Century, 29 Dec 2006
Having read many true accounts of arctic adventures I thought I read some arctic fiction. The historical references seem to be correct. However the story is not one of heroism and neither is it uplifting in any way. It is the account in the life of an analytical academic who's seen the world but lives purely within his own small world. He let's life happen to him and suffers the consequent misery. It has a touch of the Jane Austen about it with unrequited love and full skirts etc. but also has the odd clumsily written sordid paragraph which would have been best left out.

Erudite, romantic and suspenseful, 29 Oct 1999
This is a wonderfully absorbing read - erudite, romantic, suspenseful and thought-provoking. Barrett writes beautifully and her characterisation in particular is superb. She captures the highs and lows of the fateful eponymous voyage and then examines its aftermath in satisfyingly convincing style. Thoroughly enjoyable on several levels.

A marvellous blend of history and human insight, 14 Jun 1999
This book exists on many layers. It is superficially an account of a fictional, but highly plausible, account of a mission to discover the fate of the explorer Franklin, who vanished seeking the northwest passage. But it is much more than that. Barrett weaves into this narrative not only great poetry but great insight into the motivation of her two main characters, the egomaniacal leader of the expedition, who seeks personal glory above all, and the expedition's diffident naturalist, who in his own way is just as self-aggrandising. Like that other great book of external and internal voyage, White's Voss, The Narwhal succeeds in both its actual and metaphorical purposes. A remarkable read.

Pointless novel with generic characters, 05 Aug 1999
I can't imagine anyone actually getting through this book. I had the feeling it was going nowhere a third of the way in. Generic characters dressed up to resemble something closer to life, plodding pace, pointless events (many of them spent in fast food places), dreary dialogue. It's supposed to be about a dying ex-monk who wants to go back to his old monastery (now sunk beneath a dammed lake), but why he feels compelled to make the journey, what dying and old age are like, what this man feels or knows, his history, have all eluded this writer who makes do with "sensitive" writing. This puts her in the ranks of so many deservedly unread writers of sensibility we seem to be churning out in great numbers. Andrea, my advice is to write only when you have something to say.

Synopsis doesn't do it justice, 08 Dec 1998
This book is really about the effect of the early death of parents on the subsequent generations. Brendan is a secondary character; his journey is the wheel around which the book turns. The true protagonists of the book are the following 2 generations, whose lives are profoundly disturbed by the early deaths of Brendan's brother and sister-in-law. I kept thinking about this book long after I'd finished it.

An interesting book., 06 Dec 1998
The synopsis of this book doesn't do it justice. It's really about the long term effects of the early death of parents on the following generations. Brenden is actually a secondary character, whose journey home is the wheel around which the story plays out. It's one of those books I found myself thinking about long after I finished reading it.

Andrea Barrett is best known for her novel The Voyage of The Narwhal and a collection of short stories, Ship Fever. In both these books scientific discovery, history and the natural world are wonderful backdrops to intimate, personal dramas. The Middle Kingdom is an earlier work but the same keen sense of curiosity about life and the way to live it glimmers on the page.

The novel opens in the recent past, in Tiananmen Square. There is smoke, gunfire and confusion, a sense of history being destroyed and re-made into something else. In the midst of this historical shattering, is a character study of an American woman teaching natural history in a Chinese laboratory. Grace Hoffmeier's story starts off "stunted and stilted, common and sad", but by the end of the novel she has found the "middle way--not too much looking back. Not too much dreaming ahead".

Grace's is an American tale, one of stifling family conflicts; and two bad marriages that look like escape routes, but are just another way of being trapped. Grace overeats to compensate for all her mistakes, to swaddle her desires, to stop herself thinking: "that was how I existed then: push, shut, close, seal, deny, forget". But on a trip to China, with her husband Walter, a meeting at a scientific conference forces her to reassesses her past and take control of her future. Andrea Barrett's prose is lyrical and sure, blending fact with fiction in an elegant meditation on personal freedom and political repression. Grace's story is shadowed by real events in China, giving her voyage of discovery an extraordinary vividness and subtlety. Barrett is unsentimental about country and person and the novel is all the more engaging for of it. --Eithne Farry

An historical tale set in the Arctic / E Coast US in 19th Century, 29 Dec 2006
Having read many true accounts of arctic adventures I thought I read some arctic fiction. The historical references seem to be correct. However the story is not one of heroism and neither is it uplifting in any way. It is the account in the life of an analytical academic who's seen the world but lives purely within his own small world. He let's life happen to him and suffers the consequent misery. It has a touch of the Jane Austen about it with unrequited love and full skirts etc. but also has the odd clumsily written sordid paragraph which would have been best left out.

Erudite, romantic and suspenseful, 29 Oct 1999
This is a wonderfully absorbing read - erudite, romantic, suspenseful and thought-provoking. Barrett writes beautifully and her characterisation in particular is superb. She captures the highs and lows of the fateful eponymous voyage and then examines its aftermath in satisfyingly convincing style. Thoroughly enjoyable on several levels.

A marvellous blend of history and human insight, 14 Jun 1999
This book exists on many layers. It is superficially an account of a fictional, but highly plausible, account of a mission to discover the fate of the explorer Franklin, who vanished seeking the northwest passage. But it is much more than that. Barrett weaves into this narrative not only great poetry but great insight into the motivation of her two main characters, the egomaniacal leader of the expedition, who seeks personal glory above all, and the expedition's diffident naturalist, who in his own way is just as self-aggrandising. Like that other great book of external and internal voyage, White's Voss, The Narwhal succeeds in both its actual and metaphorical purposes. A remarkable read.

Pointless novel with generic characters, 05 Aug 1999
I can't imagine anyone actually getting through this book. I had the feeling it was going nowhere a third of the way in. Generic characters dressed up to resemble something closer to life, plodding pace, pointless events (many of them spent in fast food places), dreary dialogue. It's supposed to be about a dying ex-monk who wants to go back to his old monastery (now sunk beneath a dammed lake), but why he feels compelled to make the journey, what dying and old age are like, what this man feels or knows, his history, have all eluded this writer who makes do with "sensitive" writing. This puts her in the ranks of so many deservedly unread writers of sensibility we seem to be churning out in great numbers. Andrea, my advice is to write only when you have something to say.

Synopsis doesn't do it justice, 08 Dec 1998
This book is really about the effect of the early death of parents on the subsequent generations. Brendan is a secondary character; his journey is the wheel around which the book turns. The true protagonists of the book are the following 2 generations, whose lives are profoundly disturbed by the early deaths of Brendan's brother and sister-in-law. I kept thinking about this book long after I'd finished it.

An interesting book., 06 Dec 1998
The synopsis of this book doesn't do it justice. It's really about the long term effects of the early death of parents on the following generations. Brenden is actually a secondary character, whose journey home is the wheel around which the story plays out. It's one of those books I found myself thinking about long after I finished reading it.

Working life out - from the middle, 24 Dec 2002
The quite complex narrative of this book gradually reveals the story of one woman's life, not chronologically, but starting from 'the middle' and working back then forward, leaping from one epiphany to another. The novel begins in the Beijing of June 1989, amid the chaos of Tiananmen Square. It then travels back in time to the narrator's childhood, describing two rather strange marriages, before coming almost full circle to a moment a couple of years prior to the opening chapter. The moment when the narrator conceives of a future as well as coming to terms with her own past.

The narrator, Grace, is a scientist, as is her much more renowned and ambitious husband, Walter. Both Grace's profession and her marriage have the accidental quality that dogs Grace's haphazard life. The overweight Grace is not a happy person, and alternately lusts after food and men, failing to find comfort in either.

Eventually, Grace finds the direction she has always craved in the form of a baby, another accidental, albeit almost intuitive, conception. The baby is half Chinese, and it is Grace's curiosity about that turbulent country (inspired by the death of a close relative) that leads her to deal with certain home truths, aided by the 'ghost' of a dead childhood friend, Zillah.

Science and the emotions are expertly balanced in this revealing, often painfully honest portrayal of the protagonist's troubled life. Although it is not the chunkiest of reads (281 pp in the paperback edition) this novel manages to capture a movement both in time and ideas, as we leap from contemplating the intricacies of Grace's internal life, to the predicament of middle class intellectuals in 1980's Communist China. Both the practical sufferings and the schism that exists between China and the West are very effectively portrayed.

There are many characters in this novel, often little more than vignettes, but each sensitively rendered and having their part to play. It is, however, the central character of Grace, along with her often opaque husband Walter, who are drawn most intimately, and it is they who shall stay with me long after I have closed this book.

USA and China - Lost and Found, 24 Dec 2001
I enjoyed this book. It makes an interesting contrast between America - a country of riches and yet lacking a soul and China - a poor country with extensive constraints upon its peoples yet seemingly more engaged with life - both the daily strugle to survive and thrive and the realities of being human. The contrast is at the heart of the book and its narrator. She has searched throughout her short life for purpose and understanding - understanding by others of her own value and by herself of her existence. She embraces China and the Chinese family that she meets and finds the beginnings of realisation and acceptance. The book is about the road to realisation but does not take us further than the start, which is a shame. Maybe a sequel is planned. I hope so, because then we can travel with her and learn even more about China and its facination for the narrator and indeed for an increasing number of us in the West.

An historical tale set in the Arctic / E Coast US in 19th Century, 29 Dec 2006
Having read many true accounts of arctic adventures I thought I read some arctic fiction. The historical references seem to be correct. However the story is not one of heroism and neither is it uplifting in any way. It is the account in the life of an analytical academic who's seen the world but lives purely within his own small world. He let's life happen to him and suffers the consequent misery. It has a touch of the Jane Austen about it with unrequited love and full skirts etc. but also has the odd clumsily written sordid paragraph which would have been best left out.

Erudite, romantic and suspenseful, 29 Oct 1999
This is a wonderfully absorbing read - erudite, romantic, suspenseful and thought-provoking. Barrett writes beautifully and her characterisation in particular is superb. She captures the highs and lows of the fateful eponymous voyage and then examines its aftermath in satisfyingly convincing style. Thoroughly enjoyable on several levels.

A marvellous blend of history and human insight, 14 Jun 1999
This book exists on many layers. It is superficially an account of a fictional, but highly plausible, account of a mission to discover the fate of the explorer Franklin, who vanished seeking the northwest passage. But it is much more than that. Barrett weaves into this narrative not only great poetry but great insight into the motivation of her two main characters, the egomaniacal leader of the expedition, who seeks personal glory above all, and the expedition's diffident naturalist, who in his own way is just as self-aggrandising. Like that other great book of external and internal voyage, White's Voss, The Narwhal succeeds in both its actual and metaphorical purposes. A remarkable read.

Pointless novel with generic characters, 05 Aug 1999
I can't imagine anyone actually getting through this book. I had the feeling it was going nowhere a third of the way in. Generic characters dressed up to resemble something closer to life, plodding pace, pointless events (many of them spent in fast food places), dreary dialogue. It's supposed to be about a dying ex-monk who wants to go back to his old monastery (now sunk beneath a dammed lake), but why he feels compelled to make the journey, what dying and old age are like, what this man feels or knows, his history, have all eluded this writer who makes do with "sensitive" writing. This puts her in the ranks of so many deservedly unread writers of sensibility we seem to be churning out in great numbers. Andrea, my advice is to write only when you have something to say.

Synopsis doesn't do it justice, 08 Dec 1998
This book is really about the effect of the early death of parents on the subsequent generations. Brendan is a secondary character; his journey is the wheel around which the book turns. The true protagonists of the book are the following 2 generations, whose lives are profoundly disturbed by the early deaths of Brendan's brother and sister-in-law. I kept thinking about this book long after I'd finished it.

An interesting book., 06 Dec 1998
The synopsis of this book doesn't do it justice. It's really about the long term effects of the early death of parents on the following generations. Brenden is actually a secondary character, whose journey home is the wheel around which the story plays out. It's one of those books I found myself thinking about long after I finished reading it.

Working life out - from the middle, 24 Dec 2002
The quite complex narrative of this book gradually reveals the story of one woman's life, not chronologically, but starting from 'the middle' and working back then forward, leaping from one epiphany to another. The novel begins in the Beijing of June 1989, amid the chaos of Tiananmen Square. It then travels back in time to the narrator's childhood, describing two rather strange marriages, before coming almost full circle to a moment a couple of years prior to the opening chapter. The moment when the narrator conceives of a future as well as coming to terms with her own past.

The narrator, Grace, is a scientist, as is her much more renowned and ambitious husband, Walter. Both Grace's profession and her marriage have the accidental quality that dogs Grace's haphazard life. The overweight Grace is not a happy person, and alternately lusts after food and men, failing to find comfort in either.

Eventually, Grace finds the direction she has always craved in the form of a baby, another accidental, albeit almost intuitive, conception. The baby is half Chinese, and it is Grace's curiosity about that turbulent country (inspired by the death of a close relative) that leads her to deal with certain home truths, aided by the 'ghost' of a dead childhood friend, Zillah.

Science and the emotions are expertly balanced in this revealing, often painfully honest portrayal of the protagonist's troubled life. Although it is not the chunkiest of reads (281 pp in the paperback edition) this novel manages to capture a movement both in time and ideas, as we leap from contemplating the intricacies of Grace's internal life, to the predicament of middle class intellectuals in 1980's Communist China. Both the practical sufferings and the schism that exists between China and the West are very effectively portrayed.

There are many characters in this novel, often little more than vignettes, but each sensitively rendered and having their part to play. It is, however, the central character of Grace, along with her often opaque husband Walter, who are drawn most intimately, and it is they who shall stay with me long after I have closed this book.

USA and China - Lost and Found, 24 Dec 2001
I enjoyed this book. It makes an interesting contrast between America - a country of riches and yet lacking a soul and China - a poor country with extensive constraints upon its peoples yet seemingly more engaged with life - both the daily strugle to survive and thrive and the realities of being human. The contrast is at the heart of the book and its narrator. She has searched throughout her short life for purpose and understanding - understanding by others of her own value and by herself of her existence. She embraces China and the Chinese family that she meets and finds the beginnings of realisation and acceptance. The book is about the road to realisation but does not take us further than the start, which is a shame. Maybe a sequel is planned. I hope so, because then we can travel with her and learn even more about China and its facination for the narrator and indeed for an increasing number of us in the West.

"We were all there, with our hopes and plans, our clashing and mingling purposes...", 22 Dec 2007
Set at Tamarack State Hospital for tuberculosis patients in July, 1916, Andrea Barrett's sensitive and moving novel creates an intimate atmosphere in which the patients become a microcosm for the attitudes, social pressures, and political movements of the country at large. Consisting primarily of immigrants who have been isolated from their families, the inhabitants are essentially alone, dealing with their illness on the strength of the values they have brought to the sanatorium.

Among these patients is Leo Marburg, a twenty-six-year-old from Lithuania with a background in science which he has never been able to use in America. Ephraim Kotov, his Russian roommate, a former shopkeeper, has been living in a utopian community of apple growers. Miles Fairchild, a wealthy American industrialist recuperating in a private cottage, has more freedom than the inhabitants of the sanitorium, but he is just as isolated and lonely. It is Miles, seeking intellectual stimulation, who suggests, on a visit to the sanitorium, that the patients meet once a week to share their past lives and interests. Talks on paleontology, evolution, gas warfare in France, the history of utopian communities, the "new"poetry of writers like Carl Sandburg, and the "new" music of Stravinsky and Moussorgsky keep the patients mentally alive, even as they are required to rest, avoid excitement, and recuperate.

The quiet life at Tamarack State is upset by three plot lines, which eventually converge. First, a young relative of Ephraim brings "incendiary" anarchist literature to the hospital and asks Ephraim to hide it for him. Secondly, Miles falls in love with a young caretaker who not only does not return his feelings but who loves Leo. Thirdly, a major fire destroys part of the hospital, the burning X-ray films creating a deadly gas. Leo, connected to all three subplots, comes under suspicion when the American Protective League investigates.

The point of view alternates between the objective third person, telling the basic story of the characters, and a first person plural--a narrative "we"--which develops to tell the story of the collective inner feelings of the inhabitants of the hospital as their lives become more complicated by love, loss, and suspicion. Barrett's sensitivity to the time period, with the growing labor movement, war fever, and medical advances (especially the mysterious X-ray) is also reflected in her attention to characterization as each character asks "Who am I, and how do I make a life that is meaningful?" Though the novel is set in 1916, its themes are universal, and its characters' problems are timeless. Beautifully paced and emotionally moving, this novel adds complexity to the themes which Barrett has developed in previous novels. Mary Whipple

In 1764, two Englishwomen set out to prove that swallows--contrary to the great Linnaeus's belief--do not hibernate underwater. But they must be patient and experiment in secret, such actions being inappropriate for the female of the species. In 1862, a hopeless naturalist heads off for yet another journey, though he can't seem to rid his conscience of the thousands of animals that have already died in his service. In 1971, a pregnant young woman, ill at ease with her socially superior husband and his stepchildren, hears of a Tierra del Fuegan taken hostage by the commander of the Beagle in 1835. This unwilling specimen was, we read, "captured, exiled, re-educated; then returned, abused by his family, finally re-accepted. Was he happy? Or was he saying that as a way to spite his captors? Darwin never knew."

Many of the characters who populate Andrea Barrett's National Book Award winning collection, Ship Fever, feel similarly displaced in the world. They long to prove themselves in both science and love, but are often thwarted by gender, social position, or the prevailing order. In "The Behaviour of the Hawkweeds", the wife of a genetics professor has learned that each narrative of discovery is matched by one, if not more, "in which science is not just unappreciated, but bent by loneliness and longing." Barrett's astonishing tales of ambition and isolation convey the meaning and feeling behind the patterns--scientific and emotional--but slip free of easy closure. The two women in "Rare Bird", like the swallows, depart England for more conducive climes, or so the brother of one believes. The reader is left to hope, and imagine. Much has been made of Andrea Barrett's interlacing of history, knowledge, and fact--and rightly so. But equal attention should be paid to the brilliant serenity and exactitude of her style. --Kerry Fried

An historical tale set in the Arctic / E Coast US in 19th Century, 29 Dec 2006
Having read many true accounts of arctic adventures I thought I read some arctic fiction. The historical references seem to be correct. However the story is not one of heroism and neither is it uplifting in any way. It is the account in the life of an analytical academic who's seen the world but lives purely within his own small world. He let's life happen to him and suffers the consequent misery. It has a touch of the Jane Austen about it with unrequited love and full skirts etc. but also has the odd clumsily written sordid paragraph which would have been best left out.

Erudite, romantic and suspenseful, 29 Oct 1999
This is a wonderfully absorbing read - erudite, romantic, suspenseful and thought-provoking. Barrett writes beautifully and her characterisation in particular is superb. She captures the highs and lows of the fateful eponymous voyage and then examines its aftermath in satisfyingly convincing style. Thoroughly enjoyable on several levels.

A marvellous blend of history and human insight, 14 Jun 1999
This book exists on many layers. It is superficially an account of a fictional, but highly plausible, account of a mission to discover the fate of the explorer Franklin, who vanished seeking the northwest passage. But it is much more than that. Barrett weaves into this narrative not only great poetry but great insight into the motivation of her two main characters, the egomaniacal leader of the expedition, who seeks personal glory above all, and the expedition's diffident naturalist, who in his own way is just as self-aggrandising. Like that other great book of external and internal voyage, White's Voss, The Narwhal succeeds in both its actual and metaphorical purposes. A remarkable read.

Pointless novel with generic characters, 05 Aug 1999
I can't imagine anyone actually getting through this book. I had the feeling it was going nowhere a third of the way in. Generic characters dressed up to resemble something closer to life, plodding pace, pointless events (many of them spent in fast food places), dreary dialogue. It's supposed to be about a dying ex-monk who wants to go back to his old monastery (now sunk beneath a dammed lake), but why he feels compelled to make the journey, what dying and old age are like, what this man feels or knows, his history, have all eluded this writer who makes do with "sensitive" writing. This puts her in the ranks of so many deservedly unread writers of sensibility we seem to be churning out in great numbers. Andrea, my advice is to write only when you have something to say.

Synopsis doesn't do it justice, 08 Dec 1998
This book is really about the effect of the early death of parents on the subsequent generations. Brendan is a secondary character; his journey is the wheel around which the book turns. The true protagonists of the book are the following 2 generations, whose lives are profoundly disturbed by the early deaths of Brendan's brother and sister-in-law. I kept thinking about this book long after I'd finished it.

An interesting book., 06 Dec 1998
The synopsis of this book doesn't do it justice. It's really about the long term effects of the early death of parents on the following generations. Brenden is actually a secondary character, whose journey home is the wheel around which the story plays out. It's one of those books I found myself thinking about long after I finished reading it.

Working life out - from the middle, 24 Dec 2002
The quite complex narrative of this book gradually reveals the story of one woman's life, not chronologically, but starting from 'the middle' and working back then forward, leaping from one epiphany to another. The novel begins in the Beijing of June 1989, amid the chaos of Tiananmen Square. It then travels back in time to the narrator's childhood, describing two rather strange marriages, before coming almost full circle to a moment a couple of years prior to the opening chapter. The moment when the narrator conceives of a future as well as coming to terms with her own past.

The narrator, Grace, is a scientist, as is her much more renowned and ambitious husband, Walter. Both Grace's profession and her marriage have the accidental quality that dogs Grace's haphazard life. The overweight Grace is not a happy person, and alternately lusts after food and men, failing to find comfort in either.

Eventually, Grace finds the direction she has always craved in the form of a baby, another accidental, albeit almost intuitive, conception. The baby is half Chinese, and it is Grace's curiosity about that turbulent country (inspired by the death of a close relative) that leads her to deal with certain home truths, aided by the 'ghost' of a dead childhood friend, Zillah.

Science and the emotions are expertly balanced in this revealing, often painfully honest portrayal of the protagonist's troubled life. Although it is not the chunkiest of reads (281 pp in the paperback edition) this novel manages to capture a movement both in time and ideas, as we leap from contemplating the intricacies of Grace's internal life, to the predicament of middle class intellectuals in 1980's Communist China. Both the practical sufferings and the schism that exists between China and the West are very effectively portrayed.

There are many characters in this novel, often little more than vignettes, but each sensitively rendered and having their part to play. It is, however, the central character of Grace, along with her often opaque husband Walter, who are drawn most intimately, and it is they who shall stay with me long after I have closed this book.

USA and China - Lost and Found, 24 Dec 2001
I enjoyed this book. It makes an interesting contrast between America - a country of riches and yet lacking a soul and China - a poor country with extensive constraints upon its peoples yet seemingly more engaged with life - both the daily strugle to survive and thrive and the realities of being human. The contrast is at the heart of the book and its narrator. She has searched throughout her short life for purpose and understanding - understanding by others of her own value and by herself of her existence. She embraces China and the Chinese family that she meets and finds the beginnings of realisation and acceptance. The book is about the road to realisation but does not take us further than the start, which is a shame. Maybe a sequel is planned. I hope so, because then we can travel with her and learn even more about China and its facination for the narrator and indeed for an increasing number of us in the West.

"We were all there, with our hopes and plans, our clashing and mingling purposes...", 22 Dec 2007
Set at Tamarack State Hospital for tuberculosis patients in July, 1916, Andrea Barrett's sensitive and moving novel creates an intimate atmosphere in which the patients become a microcosm for the attitudes, social pressures, and political movements of the country at large. Consisting primarily of immigrants who have been isolated from their families, the inhabitants are essentially alone, dealing with their illness on the strength of the values they have brought to the sanatorium.

Among these patients is Leo Marburg, a twenty-six-year-old from Lithuania with a background in science which he has never been able to use in America. Ephraim Kotov, his Russian roommate, a former shopkeeper, has been living in a utopian community of apple growers. Miles Fairchild, a wealthy American industrialist recuperating in a private cottage, has more freedom than the inhabitants of the sanitorium, but he is just as isolated and lonely. It is Miles, seeking intellectual stimulation, who suggests, on a visit to the sanitorium, that the patients meet once a week to share their past lives and interests. Talks on paleontology, evolution, gas warfare in France, the history of utopian communities, the "new"poetry of writers like Carl Sandburg, and the "new" music of Stravinsky and Moussorgsky keep the patients mentally alive, even as they are required to rest, avoid excitement, and recuperate.

The quiet life at Tamarack State is upset by three plot lines, which eventually converge. First, a young relative of Ephraim brings "incendiary" anarchist literature to the hospital and asks Ephraim to hide it for him. Secondly, Miles falls in love with a young caretaker who not only does not return his feelings but who loves Leo. Thirdly, a major fire destroys part of the hospital, the burning X-ray films creating a deadly gas. Leo, connected to all three subplots, comes under suspicion when the American Protective League investigates.

The point of view alternates between the objective third person, telling the basic story of the characters, and a first person plural--a narrative "we"--which develops to tell the story of the collective inner feelings of the inhabitants of the hospital as their lives become more complicated by love, loss, and suspicion. Barrett's sensitivity to the time period, with the growing labor movement, war fever, and medical advances (especially the mysterious X-ray) is also reflected in her attention to characterization as each character asks "Who am I, and how do I make a life that is meaningful?" Though the novel is set in 1916, its themes are universal, and its characters' problems are timeless. Beautifully paced and emotionally moving, this novel adds complexity to the themes which Barrett has developed in previous novels. Mary Whipple

Tales that sailed by me, 27 Jun 2001
The stories in this much-celebrated collection just went over my head. I admit to being in the Roald Dahl school of how short stories should work, and the tales in this collection just left me thinking "so what?". (Actually the final story, at 100 pp. , is more of a novella.) All of the stories are loosely about the role of women in the history of science, and are all pleasingly written, but they left me cold.

Beautiful and gripping stories, 07 Jan 1999
One of the most eloquent and true voices describing scientists as people. She understands amazingly well the role science and the pursuit of knowledge can play in their day to day lives.

Poetic Mesmerization Reminicent of Anne Tyler, 09 Jul 1998
I was well pleased by this book. It describes, with eloquent grace, the manner in which many people (like those whom I have met) live. Ms. Barrett is like Anne Tyler in that her stories are what is important, not their endings, or their potential commercial audience. Barrett's prose is vivid and lyrical. This is an excellent book to read.

An Outstanding Collection, 28 Mar 1998
This is one of the most intelligently written collections I have read in a long time. At first thought, I was concerned that the weaving of fictional characters with historical figures from the world of science would result in a contrived work that was more interested in serving its format than it was at achieving its literary goal. My concerns were misplaced. The author has created a series of tales that explore and provide insight into some of the most basic human emotions. She is especially adept at creating events that transcend their natural progression and serve as metaphors for at times exhilarating, and at times disturbing aspects of the human condition. Although I can understand those who might feel that this is a book that is difficult to put down, I would suggest that it is better digested in small servings. Each tale requires some reflection on the reader's part in order to best enjoy this wonderful collection.

Fascinating stories by a talented author., 12 Feb 1998
A. Barrett's short stories expertly weave science and psychology with fact and fiction. She carefully paints her cameos while the reader transcends as voyeur, one page at a time. This talented author's works are summarized in the Contemporary Authors reference guide, but without any information of her background or education. I would greatly appreciate some help in this area.

The Forms of Water is Andrea Barrett's second highly accomplished novel and tells the story of the bitter history of the Auberon clan. Henry Auberon is a failed property developer, who has "lost his house, his daughters, his friends, his wife" and is now "trapped in a dead-end job with no future he could see." His sister Wiloma is an emotional wreck, absorbed in "the glories of her newfound religion" following an emotionally bruising divorce. The only connection to their lost childhood spent in Paradise Valley, long ago flooded to make way for a reservoir to quench the thirst of nearby Boston, is their 80-year-old Uncle Brendan. A former monk who has lost his faith, Brendan convinces Henry to take him on one final trip to see the Auberon's remaining piece of land, which Henry will do anything to get his hands on and develop.

So begins a sometimes funny but relentlessly elegiac story of the search for a world that has been irretrievably lost. Henry, Brendan, Wiloma and their alienated children all converge on Paradise Valley, hoping to find something that will give their lives some meaning. The children pursue their parents "because they were confused and lost and destructive and incapable of caring for themselves. They were so busy chasing after a past they couldn't recover that they couldn't see what was happening right in front of their eyes." At the other extreme, Brendan wearily concludes that "it would take hours, days, for them to explain themselves to each other, and the telling would mean reliving everything. And who could stand that? Just surviving was work enough."

The Forms of Water is a beautifully written and carefully structured novel, but its bleak elegy to a lost world will not stimulate everyone as profoundly as Barrett's triumphant first novel, The Voyage of the Narwhal.--Jerry Brotton

An historical tale set in the Arctic / E Coast US in 19th Century, 29 Dec 2006
Having read many true accounts of arctic adventures I thought I read some arctic fiction. The historical references seem to be correct. However the story is not one of heroism and neither is it uplifting in any way. It is the account in the life of an analytical academic who's seen the world but lives purely within his own small world. He let's life happen to him and suffers the consequent misery. It has a touch of the Jane Austen about it with unrequited love and full skirts etc. but also has the odd clumsily written sordid paragraph which would have been best left out.

Erudite, romantic and suspenseful, 29 Oct 1999
This is a wonderfully absorbing read - erudite, romantic, suspenseful and thought-provoking. Barrett writes beautifully and her characterisation in particular is superb. She captures the highs and lows of the fateful eponymous voyage and then examines its aftermath in satisfyingly convincing style. Thoroughly enjoyable on several levels.

A marvellous blend of history and human insight, 14 Jun 1999
This book exists on many layers. It is superficially an account of a fictional, but highly plausible, account of a mission to discover the fate of the explorer Franklin, who vanished seeking the northwest passage. But it is much more than that. Barrett weaves into this narrative not only great poetry but great insight into the motivation of her two main characters, the egomaniacal leader of the expedition, who seeks personal glory above all, and the expedition's diffident naturalist, who in his own way is just as self-aggrandising. Like that other great book of external and internal voyage, White's Voss, The Narwhal succeeds in both its actual and metaphorical purposes. A remarkable read.

Pointless novel with generic characters, 05 Aug 1999
I can't imagine anyone actually getting through this book. I had the feeling it was going nowhere a third of the way in. Generic characters dressed up to resemble something closer to life, plodding pace, pointless events (many of them spent in fast food places), dreary dialogue. It's supposed to be about a dying ex-monk who wants to go back to his old monastery (now sunk beneath a dammed lake), but why he feels compelled to make the journey, what dying and old age are like, what this man feels or knows, his history, have all eluded this writer who makes do with "sensitive" writing. This puts her in the ranks of so many deservedly unread writers of sensibility we seem to be churning out in great numbers. Andrea, my advice is to write only when you have something to say.

Synopsis doesn't do it justice, 08 Dec 1998
This book is really about the effect of the early death of parents on the subsequent generations. Brendan is a secondary character; his journey is the wheel around which the book turns. The true protagonists of the book are the following 2 generations, whose lives are profoundly disturbed by the early deaths of Brendan's brother and sister-in-law. I kept thinking about this book long after I'd finished it.

An interesting book., 06 Dec 1998
The synopsis of this book doesn't do it justice. It's really about the long term effects of the early death of parents on the following generations. Brenden is actually a secondary character, whose journey home is the wheel around which the story plays out. It's one of those books I found myself thinking about long after I finished reading it.

Working life out - from the middle, 24 Dec 2002
The quite complex narrative of this book gradually reveals the story of one woman's life, not chronologically, but starting from 'the middle' and working back then forward, leaping from one epiphany to another. The novel begins in the Beijing of June 1989, amid the chaos of Tiananmen Square. It then travels back in time to the narrator's childhood, describing two rather strange marriages, before coming almost full circle to a moment a couple of years prior to the opening chapter. The moment when the narrator conceives of a future as well as coming to terms with her own past.

The narrator, Grace, is a scientist, as is her much more renowned and ambitious husband, Walter. Both Grace's profession and her marriage have the accidental quality that dogs Grace's haphazard life. The overweight Grace is not a happy person, and alternately lusts after food and men, failing to find comfort in either.

Eventually, Grace finds the direction she has always craved in the form of a baby, another accidental, albeit almost intuitive, conception. The baby is half Chinese, and it is Grace's curiosity about that turbulent country (inspired by the death of a close relative) that leads her to deal with certain home truths, aided by the 'ghost' of a dead childhood friend, Zillah.

Science and the emotions are expertly balanced in this revealing, often painfully honest portrayal of the protagonist's troubled life. Although it is not the chunkiest of reads (281 pp in the paperback edition) this novel manages to capture a movement both in time and ideas, as we leap from contemplating the intricacies of Grace's internal life, to the predicament of middle class intellectuals in 1980's Communist China. Both the practical sufferings and the schism that exists between China and the West are very effectively portrayed.

There are many characters in this novel, often little more than vignettes, but each sensitively rendered and having their part to play. It is, however, the central character of Grace, along with her often opaque husband Walter, who are drawn most intimately, and it is they who shall stay with me long after I have closed this book.

USA and China - Lost and Found, 24 Dec 2001
I enjoyed this book. It makes an interesting contrast between America - a country of riches and yet lacking a soul and China - a poor country with extensive constraints upon its peoples yet seemingly more engaged with life - both the daily strugle to survive and thrive and the realities of being human. The contrast is at the heart of the book and its narrator. She has searched throughout her short life for purpose and understanding - understanding by others of her own value and by herself of her existence. She embraces China and the Chinese family that she meets and finds the beginnings of realisation and acceptance. The book is about the road to realisation but does not take us further than the start, which is a shame. Maybe a sequel is planned. I hope so, because then we can travel with her and learn even more about China and its facination for the narrator and indeed for an increasing number of us in the West.

"We were all there, with our hopes and plans, our clashing and mingling purposes...", 22 Dec 2007
Set at Tamarack State Hospital for tuberculosis patients in July, 1916, Andrea Barrett's sensitive and moving novel creates an intimate atmosphere in which the patients become a microcosm for the attitudes, social pressures, and political movements of the country at large. Consisting primarily of immigrants who have been isolated from their families, the inhabitants are essentially alone, dealing with their illness on the strength of the values they have brought to the sanatorium.

Among these patients is Leo Marburg, a twenty-six-year-old from Lithuania with a background in science which he has never been able to use in America. Ephraim Kotov, his Russian roommate, a former shopkeeper, has been living in a utopian community of apple growers. Miles Fairchild, a wealthy American industrialist recuperating in a private cottage, has more freedom than the inhabitants of the sanitorium, but he is just as isolated and lonely. It is Miles, seeking intellectual stimulation, who suggests, on a visit to the sanitorium, that the patients meet once a week to share their past lives and interests. Talks on paleontology, evolution, gas warfare in France, the history of utopian communities, the "new"poetry of writers like Carl Sandburg, and the "new" music of Stravinsky and Moussorgsky keep the patients mentally alive, even as they are required to rest, avoid excitement, and recuperate.

The quiet life at Tamarack State is upset by three plot lines, which eventually converge. First, a young relative of Ephraim brings "incendiary" anarchist literature to the hospital and asks Ephraim to hide it for him. Secondly, Miles falls in love with a young caretaker who not only does not return his feelings but who loves Leo. Thirdly, a major fire destroys part of the hospital, the burning X-ray films creating a deadly gas. Leo, connected to all three subplots, comes under suspicion when the American Protective League investigates.

The point of view alternates between the objective third person, telling the basic story of the characters, and a first person plural--a narrative "we"--which develops to tell the story of the collective inner feelings of the inhabitants of the hospital as their lives become more complicated by love, loss, and suspicion. Barrett's sensitivity to the time period, with the growing labor movement, war fever, and medical advances (especially the mysterious X-ray) is also reflected in her attention to characterization as each character asks "Who am I, and how do I make a life that is meaningful?" Though the novel is set in 1916, its themes are universal, and its characters' problems are timeless. Beautifully paced and emotionally moving, this novel adds complexity to the themes which Barrett has developed in previous novels. Mary Whipple

Tales that sailed by me, 27 Jun 2001
The stories in this much-celebrated collection just went over my head. I admit to being in the Roald Dahl school of how short stories should work, and the tales in this collection just left me thinking "so what?". (Actually the final story, at 100 pp. , is more of a novella.) All of the stories are loosely about the role of women in the history of science, and are all pleasingly written, but they left me cold.

Beautiful and gripping stories, 07 Jan 1999
One of the most eloquent and true voices describing scientists as people. She understands amazingly well the role science and the pursuit of knowledge can play in their day to day lives.

Poetic Mesmerization Reminicent of Anne Tyler, 09 Jul 1998
I was well pleased by this book. It describes, with eloquent grace, the manner in which many people (like those whom I have met) live. Ms. Barrett is like Anne Tyler in that her stories are what is important, not their endings, or their potential commercial audience. Barrett's prose is vivid and lyrical. This is an excellent book to read.

An Outstanding Collection, 28 Mar 1998
This is one of the most intelligently written collections I have read in a long time. At first thought, I was concerned that the weaving of fictional characters with historical figures from the world of science would result in a contrived work that was more interested in serving its format than it was at achieving its literary goal. My concerns were misplaced. The author has created a series of tales that explore and provide insight into some of the most basic human emotions. She is especially adept at creating events that transcend their natural progression and serve as metaphors for at times exhilarating, and at times disturbing aspects of the human condition. Although I can understand those who might feel that this is a book that is difficult to put down, I would suggest that it is better digested in small servings. Each tale requires some reflection on the reader's part in order to best enjoy this wonderful collection.

Fascinating stories by a talented author., 12 Feb 1998
A. Barrett's short stories expertly weave science and psychology with fact and fiction. She carefully paints her cameos while the reader transcends as voyeur, one page at a time. This talented author's works are summarized in the Contemporary Authors reference guide, but without any information of her background or education. I would greatly appreciate some help in this area.

Pointless novel with generic characters, 05 Aug 1999
I can't imagine anyone actually getting through this book. I had the feeling it was going nowhere a third of the way in. Generic characters dressed up to resemble something closer to life, plodding pace, pointless events (many of them spent in fast food places), dreary dialogue. It's supposed to be about a dying ex-monk who wants to go back to his old monastery (now sunk beneath a dammed lake), but why he feels compelled to make the journey, what dying and old age are like, what this man feels or knows, his history, have all eluded this writer who makes do with "sensitive" writing. This puts her in the ranks of so many deservedly unread writers of sensibility we seem to be churning out in great numbers. Andrea, my advice is to write only when you have something to say.

Synopsis doesn't do it justice, 08 Dec 1998
This book is really about the effect of the early death of parents on the subsequent generations. Brendan is a secondary character; his journey is the wheel around which the book turns. The true protagonists of the book are the following 2 generations, whose lives are profoundly disturbed by the early deaths of Brendan's brother and sister-in-law. I kept thinking about this book long after I'd finished it.

An interesting book., 06 Dec 1998
The synopsis of this book doesn't do it justice. It's really about the long term effects of the early death of parents on the following generations. Brenden is actually a secondary character, whose journey home is the wheel around which the story plays out. It's one of those books I found myself thinking about long after I finished reading it.

An historical tale set in the Arctic / E Coast US in 19th Century, 29 Dec 2006
Having read many true accounts of arctic adventures I thought I read some arctic fiction. The historical references seem to be correct. However the story is not one of heroism and neither is it uplifting in any way. It is the account in the life of an analytical academic who's seen the world but lives purely within his own small world. He let's life happen to him and suffers the consequent misery. It has a touch of the Jane Austen about it with unrequited love and full skirts etc. but also has the odd clumsily written sordid paragraph which would have been best left out.

Erudite, romantic and suspenseful, 29 Oct 1999
This is a wonderfully absorbing read - erudite, romantic, suspenseful and thought-provoking. Barrett writes beautifully and her characterisation in particular is superb. She captures the highs and lows of the fateful eponymous voyage and then examines its aftermath in satisfyingly convincing style. Thoroughly enjoyable on several levels.

A marvellous blend of history and human insight, 14 Jun 1999
This book exists on many layers. It is superficially an account of a fictional, but highly plausible, account of a mission to discover the fate of the explorer Franklin, who vanished seeking the northwest passage. But it is much more than that. Barrett weaves into this narrative not only great poetry but great insight into the motivation of her two main characters, the egomaniacal leader of the expedition, who seeks personal glory above all, and the expedition's diffident naturalist, who in his own way is just as self-aggrandising. Like that other great book of external and internal voyage, White's Voss, The Narwhal succeeds in both its actual and metaphorical purposes. A remarkable read.

Pointless novel with generic characters, 05 Aug 1999
I can't imagine anyone actually getting through this book. I had the feeling it was going nowhere a third of the way in. Generic characters dressed up to resemble something closer to life, plodding pace, pointless events (many of them spent in fast food places), dreary dialogue. It's supposed to be about a dying ex-monk who wants to go back to his old monastery (now sunk beneath a dammed lake), but why he feels compelled to make the journey, what dying and old age are like, what this man feels or knows, his history, have all eluded this writer who makes do with "sensitive" writing. This puts her in the ranks of so many deservedly unread writers of sensibility we seem to be churning out in great numbers. Andrea, my advice is to write only when you have something to say.

Synopsis doesn't do it justice, 08 Dec 1998
This book is really about the effect of the early death of parents on the subsequent generations. Brendan is a secondary character; his journey is the wheel around which the book turns. The true protagonists of the book are the following 2 generations, whose lives are profoundly disturbed by the early deaths of Brendan's brother and sister-in-law. I kept thinking about this book long after I'd finished it.

An interesting book., 06 Dec 1998
The synopsis of this book doesn't do it justice. It's really about the long term effects of the early death of parents on the following generations. Brenden is actually a secondary character, whose journey home is the wheel around which the story plays out. It's one of those books I found myself thinking about long after I finished reading it.

Working life out - from the middle, 24 Dec 2002
The quite complex narrative of this book gradually reveals the story of one woman's life, not chronologically, but starting from 'the middle' and working back then forward, leaping from one epiphany to another. The novel begins in the Beijing of June 1989, amid the chaos of Tiananmen Square. It then travels back in time to the narrator's childhood, describing two rather strange marriages, before coming almost full circle to a moment a couple of years prior to the opening chapter. The moment when the narrator conceives of a future as well as coming to terms with her own past.

The narrator, Grace, is a scientist, as is her much more renowned and ambitious husband, Walter. Both Grace's profession and her marriage have the accidental quality that dogs Grace's haphazard life. The overweight Grace is not a happy person, and alternately lusts after food and men, failing to find comfort in either.

Eventually, Grace finds the direction she has always craved in the form of a baby, another accidental, albeit almost intuitive, conception. The baby is half Chinese, and it is Grace's curiosity about that turbulent country (inspired by the death of a close relative) that leads her to deal with certain home truths, aided by the 'ghost' of a dead childhood friend, Zillah.

Science and the emotions are expertly balanced in this revealing, often painfully honest portrayal of the protagonist's troubled life. Although it is not the chunkiest of reads (281 pp in the paperback edition) this novel manages to capture a movement both in time and ideas, as we leap from contemplating the intricacies of Grace's internal life, to the predicament of middle class intellectuals in 1980's Communist China. Both the practical sufferings and the schism that exists between China and the West are very effectively portrayed.

There are many characters in this novel, often little more than vignettes, but each sensitively rendered and having their part to play. It is, however, the central character of Grace, along with her often opaque husband Walter, who are drawn most intimately, and it is they who shall stay with me long after I have closed this book.

USA and China - Lost and Found, 24 Dec 2001
I enjoyed this book. It makes an interesting contrast between America - a country of riches and yet lacking a soul and China - a poor country with extensive constraints upon its peoples yet seemingly more engaged with life - both the daily strugle to survive and thrive and the realities of being human. The contrast is at the heart of the book and its narrator. She has searched throughout her short life for purpose and understanding - understanding by others of her own value and by herself of her existence. She embraces China and the Chinese family that she meets and finds the beginnings of realisation and acceptance. The book is about the road to realisation but does not take us further than the start, which is a shame. Maybe a sequel is planned. I hope so, because then we can travel with her and learn even more about China and its facination for the narrator and indeed for an increasing number of us in the West.

"We were all there, with our hopes and plans, our clashing and mingling purposes...", 22 Dec 2007
Set at Tamarack State Hospital for tuberculosis patients in July, 1916, Andrea Barrett's sensitive and moving novel creates an intimate atmosphere in which the patients become a microcosm for the attitudes, social pressures, and political movements of the country at large. Consisting primarily of immigrants who have been isolated from their families, the inhabitants are essentially alone, dealing with their illness on the strength of the values they have brought to the sanatorium.

Among these patients is Leo Marburg, a twenty-six-year-old from Lithuania with a background in science which he has never been able to use in America. Ephraim Kotov, his Russian roommate, a former shopkeeper, has been living in a utopian community of apple growers. Miles Fairchild, a wealthy American industrialist recuperating in a private cottage, has more freedom than the inhabitants of the sanitorium, but he is just as isolated and lonely. It is Miles, seeking intellectual stimulation, who suggests, on a visit to the sanitorium, that the patients meet once a week to share their past lives and interests. Talks on paleontology, evolution, gas warfare in France, the history of utopian communities, the "new"poetry of writers like Carl Sandburg, and the "new" music of Stravinsky and Moussorgsky keep the patients mentally alive, even as they are required to rest, avoid excitement, and recuperate.

The quiet life at Tamarack State is upset by three plot lines, which eventually converge. First, a young relative of Ephraim brings "incendiary" anarchist literature to the hospital and asks Ephraim to hide it for him. Secondly, Miles falls in love with a young caretaker who not only does not return his feelings but who loves Leo. Thirdly, a major fire destroys part of the hospital, the burning X-ray films creating a deadly gas. Leo, connected to all three subplots, comes under suspicion when the American Protective League investigates.

The point of view alternates between the objective third person, telling the basic story of the characters, and a first person plural--a narrative "we"--which develops to tell the story of the collective inner feelings of the inhabitants of the hospital as their lives become more complicated by love, loss, and suspicion. Barrett's sensitivity to the time period, with the growing labor movement, war fever, and medical advances (especially the mysterious X-ray) is also reflected in her attention to characterization as each character asks "Who am I, and how do I make a life that is meaningful?" Though the novel is set in 1916, its themes are universal, and its characters' problems are timeless. Beautifully paced and emotionally moving, this novel adds complexity to the themes which Barrett has developed in previous novels. Mary Whipple

Tales that sailed by me, 27 Jun 2001
The stories in this much-celebrated collection just went over my head. I admit to being in the Roald Dahl school of how short stories should work, and the tales in this collection just left me thinking "so what?". (Actually the final story, at 100 pp. , is more of a novella.) All of the stories are loosely about the role of women in the history of science, and are all pleasingly written, but they left me cold.

Beautiful and gripping stories, 07 Jan 1999
One of the most eloquent and true voices describing scientists as people. She understands amazingly well the role science and the pursuit of knowledge can play in their day to day lives.

Poetic Mesmerization Reminicent of Anne Tyler, 09 Jul 1998
I was well pleased by this book. It describes, with eloquent grace, the manner in which many people (like those whom I have met) live. Ms. Barrett is like Anne Tyler in that her stories are what is important, not their endings, or their potential commercial audience. Barrett's prose is vivid and lyrical. This is an excellent book to read.

An Outstanding Collection, 28 Mar 1998
This is one of the most intelligently written collections I have read in a long time. At first thought, I was concerned that the weaving of fictional characters with historical figures from the world of science would result in a contrived work that was more interested in serving its format than it was at achieving its literary goal. My concerns were misplaced. The author has created a series of tales that explore and provide insight into some of the most basic human emotions. She is especially adept at creating events that transcend their natural progression and serve as metaphors for at times exhilarating, and at times disturbing aspects of the human condition. Although I can understand those who might feel that this is a book that is difficult to put down, I would suggest that it is better digested in small servings. Each tale requires some reflection on the reader's part in order to best enjoy this wonderful collection.

Fascinating stories by a talented author., 12 Feb 1998
A. Barrett's short stories expertly weave science and psychology with fact and fiction. She carefully paints her cameos while the reader transcends as voyeur, one page at a time. This talented author's works are summarized in the Contemporary Authors reference guide, but without any information of her background or education. I would greatly appreciate some help in this area.

Pointless novel with generic characters, 05 Aug 1999
I can't imagine anyone actually getting through this book. I had the feeling it was going nowhere a third of the way in. Generic characters dressed up to resemble something closer to life, plodding pace, pointless events (many of them spent in fast food places), dreary dialogue. It's supposed to be about a dying ex-monk who wants to go back to his old monastery (now sunk beneath a dammed lake), but why he feels compelled to make the journey, what dying and old age are like, what this man feels or knows, his history, have all eluded this writer who makes do with "sensitive" writing. This puts her in the ranks of so many deservedly unread writers of sensibility we seem to be churning out in great numbers. Andrea, my advice is to write only when you have something to say.

Synopsis doesn't do it justice, 08 Dec 1998
This book is really about the effect of the early death of parents on the subsequent generations. Brendan is a secondary character; his journey is the wheel around which the book turns. The true protagonists of the book are the following 2 generations, whose lives are profoundly disturbed by the early deaths of Brendan's brother and sister-in-law. I kept thinking about this book long after I'd finished it.

An interesting book., 06 Dec 1998
The synopsis of this book doesn't do it justice. It's really about the long term effects of the early death of parents on the following generations. Brenden is actually a secondary character, whose journey home is the wheel around which the story plays out. It's one of those books I found myself thinking about long after I finished reading it.

Too bad it didn't age well, 08 Mar 1999
I read this book because it was recommended as one I might like by Amazon. Reader, beware. This book was pretty much a waste of time, set in a rather uninteresting Cape Cod, with inadequate character development and no plot to speak of. Probably fresher when it was new.

An historical tale set in the Arctic / E Coast US in 19th Century, 29 Dec 2006
Having read many true accounts of arctic adventures I thought I read some arctic fiction. The historical references seem to be correct. However the story is not one of heroism and neither is it uplifting in any way. It is the account in the life of an analytical academic who's seen the world but lives purely within his own small world. He let's life happen to him and suffers the consequent misery. It has a touch of the Jane Austen about it with unrequited love and full skirts etc. but also has the odd clumsily written sordid paragraph which would have been best left out.

Erudite, romantic and suspenseful, 29 Oct 1999
This is a wonderfully absorbing read - erudite, romantic, suspenseful and thought-provoking. Barrett writes beautifully and her characterisation in particular is superb. She captures the highs and lows of the fateful eponymous voyage and then examines its aftermath in satisfyingly convincing style. Thoroughly enjoyable on several levels.

A marvellous blend of history and human insight, 14 Jun 1999
This book exists on many layers. It is superficially an account of a fictional, but highly plausible, account of a mission to discover the fate of the explorer Franklin, who vanished seeking the northwest passage. But it is much more than that. Barrett weaves into this narrative not only great poetry but great insight into the motivation of her two main characters, the egomaniacal leader of the expedition, who seeks personal glory above all, and the expedition's diffident naturalist, who in his own way is just as self-aggrandising. Like that other great book of external and internal voyage, White's Voss, The Narwhal succeeds in both its actual and metaphorical purposes. A remarkable read.

Pointless novel with generic characters, 05 Aug 1999
I can't imagine anyone actually getting through this book. I had the feeling it was going nowhere a third of the way in. Generic characters dressed up to resemble something closer to life, plodding pace, pointless events (many of them spent in fast food places), dreary dialogue. It's supposed to be about a dying ex-monk who wants to go back to his old monastery (now sunk beneath a dammed lake), but why he feels compelled to make the journey, what dying and old age are like, what this man feels or knows, his history, have all eluded this writer who makes do with "sensitive" writing. This puts her in the ranks of so many deservedly unread writers of sensibility we seem to be churning out in great numbers. Andrea, my advice is to write only when you have something to say.

Synopsis doesn't do it justice, 08 Dec 1998
This book is really about the effect of the early death of parents on the subsequent generations. Brendan is a secondary character; his journey is the wheel around which the book turns. The true protagonists of the book are the following 2 generations, whose lives are profoundly disturbed by the early deaths of Brendan's brother and sister-in-law. I kept thinking about this book long after I'd finished it.

An interesting book., 06 Dec 1998
The synopsis of this book doesn't do it justice. It's really about the long term effects of the early death of parents on the following generations. Brenden is actually a secondary character, whose journey home is the wheel around which the story plays out. It's one of those books I found myself thinking about long after I finished reading it.

Working life out - from the middle, 24 Dec 2002
The quite complex narrative of this book gradually reveals the story of one woman's life, not chronologically, but starting from 'the middle' and working back then forward, leaping from one epiphany to another. The novel begins in the Beijing of June 1989, amid the chaos of Tiananmen Square. It then travels back in time to the narrator's childhood, describing two rather strange marriages, before coming almost full circle to a moment a couple of years prior to the opening chapter. The moment when the narrator conceives of a future as well as coming to terms with her own past.

The narrator, Grace, is a scientist, as is her much more renowned and ambitious husband, Walter. Both Grace's profession and her marriage have the accidental quality that dogs Grace's haphazard life. The overweight Grace is not a happy person, and alternately lusts after food and men, failing to find comfort in either.

Eventually, Grace finds the direction she has always craved in the form of a baby, another accidental, albeit almost intuitive, conception. The baby is half Chinese, and it is Grace's curiosity about that turbulent country (inspired by the death of a close relative) that leads her to deal with certain home truths, aided by the 'ghost' of a dead childhood friend, Zillah.

Science and the emotions are expertly balanced in this revealing, often painfully honest portrayal of the protagonist's troubled life. Although it is not the chunkiest of reads (281 pp in the paperback edition) this novel manages to capture a movement both in time and ideas, as we leap from contemplating the intricacies of Grace's internal life, to the predicament of middle class intellectuals in 1980's Communist China. Both the practical sufferings and the schism that exists between China and the West are very effectively portrayed.

There are many characters in this novel, often little more than vignettes, but each sensitively rendered and having their part to play. It is, however, the central character of Grace, along with her often opaque husband Walter, who are drawn most intimately, and it is they who shall stay with me long after I have closed this book.

USA and China - Lost and Found, 24 Dec 2001
I enjoyed this book. It makes an interesting contrast between America - a country of riches and yet lacking a soul and China - a poor country with extensive constraints upon its peoples yet seemingly more engaged with life - both the daily strugle to survive and thrive and the realities of being human. The contrast is at the heart of the book and its narrator. She has searched throughout her short life for purpose and understanding - understanding by others of her own value and by herself of her existence. She embraces China and the Chinese family that she meets and finds the beginnings of realisation and acceptance. The book is about the road to realisation but does not take us further than the start, which is a shame. Maybe a sequel is planned. I hope so, because then we can travel with her and learn even more about China and its facination for the narrator and indeed for an increasing number of us in the West.

"We were all there, with our hopes and plans, our clashing and mingling purposes...", 22 Dec 2007
Set at Tamarack State Hospital for tuberculosis patients in July, 1916, Andrea Barrett's sensitive and moving novel creates an intimate atmosphere in which the patients become a microcosm for the attitudes, social pressures, and political movements of the country at large. Consisting primarily of immigrants who have been isolated from their families, the inhabitants are essentially alone, dealing with their illness on the strength of the values they have brought to the sanatorium.

Among these patients is Leo Marburg, a twenty-six-year-old from Lithuania with a background in science which he has never been able to use in America. Ephraim Kotov, his Russian roommate, a former shopkeeper, has been living in a utopian community of apple growers. Miles Fairchild, a wealthy American industrialist recuperating in a private cottage, has more freedom than the inhabitants of the sanitorium, but he is just as isolated and lonely. It is Miles, seeking intellectual stimulation, who suggests, on a visit to the sanitorium, that the patients meet once a week to share their past lives and interests. Talks on paleontology, evolution, gas warfare in France, the history of utopian communities, the "new"poetry of writers like Carl Sandburg, and the "new" music of Stravinsky and Moussorgsky keep the patients mentally alive, even as they are required to rest, avoid excitement, and recuperate.

The quiet life at Tamarack State is upset by three plot lines, which eventually converge. First, a young relative of Ephraim brings "incendiary" anarchist literature to the hospital and asks Ephraim to hide it for him. Secondly, Miles falls in love with a young caretaker who not only does not return his feelings but who loves Leo. Thirdly, a major fire destroys part of the hospital, the burning X-ray films creating a deadly gas. Leo, connected to all three subplots, comes under suspicion when the American Protective League investigates.

The point of view alternates between the objective third person, telling the basic story of the characters, and a first person plural--a narrative "we"--which develops to tell the story of the collective inner feelings of the inhabitants of the hospital as their lives become more complicated by love, loss, and suspicion. Barrett's sensitivity to the time period, with the growing labor movement, war fever, and medical advances (especially the mysterious X-ray) is also reflected in her attention to characterization as each character asks "Who am I, and how do I make a life that is meaningful?" Though the novel is set in 1916, its themes are universal, and its characters' problems are timeless. Beautifully paced and emotionally moving, this novel adds complexity to the themes which Barrett has developed in previous novels. Mary Whipple

Tales that sailed by me, 27 Jun 2001
The stories in this much-celebrated collection just went over my head. I admit to being in the Roald Dahl school of how short stories should work, and the tales in this collection just left me thinking "so what?". (Actually the final story, at 100 pp. , is more of a novella.) All of the stories are loosely about the role of women in the history of science, and are all pleasingly written, but they left me cold.

Beautiful and gripping stories, 07 Jan 1999
One of the most eloquent and true voices describing scientists as people. She understands amazingly well the role science and the pursuit of knowledge can play in their day to day lives.

Poetic Mesmerization Reminicent of Anne Tyler, 09 Jul 1998
I was well pleased by this book. It describes, with eloquent grace, the manner in which many people (like those whom I have met) live. Ms. Barrett is like Anne Tyler in that her stories are what is important, not their endings, or their potential commercial audience. Barrett's prose is vivid and lyrical. This is an excellent book to read.

An Outstanding Collection, 28 Mar 1998
This is one of the most intelligently written collections I have read in a long time. At first thought, I was concerned that the weaving of fictional characters with historical figures from the world of science would result in a contrived work that was more interested in serving its format than it was at achieving its literary goal. My concerns were misplaced. The author has created a series of tales that explore and provide insight into some of the most basic human emotions. She is especially adept at creating events that transcend their natural progression and serve as metaphors for at times exhilarating, and at times disturbing aspects of the human condition. Although I can understand those who might feel that this is a book that is difficult to put down, I would suggest that it is better digested in small servings. Each tale requires some reflection on the reader's part in order to best enjoy this wonderful collection.

Fascinating stories by a talented author., 12 Feb 1998
A. Barrett's short stories expertly weave science and psychology with fact and fiction. She carefully paints her cameos while the reader transcends as voyeur, one page at a time. This talented author's works are summarized in the Contemporary Authors reference guide, but without any information of her background or education. I would greatly appreciate some help in this area.

Pointless novel with generic characters, 05 Aug 1999
I can't imagine anyone actually getting through this book. I had the feeling it was going nowhere a third of the way in. Generic characters dressed up to resemble something closer to life, plodding pace, pointless events (many of them spent in fast food places), dreary dialogue. It's supposed to be about a dying ex-monk who wants to go back to his old monastery (now sunk beneath a dammed lake), but why he feels compelled to make the journey, what dying and old age are like, what this man feels or knows, his history, have all eluded this writer who makes do with "sensitive" writing. This puts her in the ranks of so many deservedly unread writers of sensibility we seem to be churning out in great numbers. Andrea, my advice is to write only when you have something to say.

Synopsis doesn't do it justice, 08 Dec 1998
This book is really about the effect of the early death of parents on the subsequent generations. Brendan is a secondary character; his journey is the wheel around which the book turns. The true protagonists of the book are the following 2 generations, whose lives are profoundly disturbed by the early deaths of Brendan's brother and sister-in-law. I kept thinking about this book long after I'd finished it.

An interesting book., 06 Dec 1998
The synopsis of this book doesn't do it justice. It's really about the long term effects of the early death of parents on the following generations. Brenden is actually a secondary character, whose journey home is the wheel around which the story plays out. It's one of those books I found myself thinking about long after I finished reading it.

Too bad it didn't age well, 08 Mar 1999
I read this book because it was recommended as one I might like by Amazon. Reader, beware. This book was pretty much a waste of time, set in a rather uninteresting Cape Cod, with inadequate character development and no plot to speak of. Probably fresher when it was new.

"We were all there, with our hopes and plans, our clashing and mingling purposes...", 22 Dec 2007
Set at Tamarack State Hospital for tuberculosis patients in July, 1916, Andrea Barrett's sensitive and moving novel creates an intimate atmosphere in which the patients become a microcosm for the attitudes, social pressures, and political movements of the country at large. Consisting primarily of immigrants who have been isolated from their families, the inhabitants are essentially alone, dealing with their illness on the strength of the values they have brought to the sanatorium.

Among these patients is Leo Marburg, a twenty-six-year-old from Lithuania with a background in science which he has never been able to use in America. Ephraim Kotov, his Russian roommate, a fo