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Stories
by Andrea Barrett
A masterful new collection of interconnected stories, from the renowned National Book Award–winning author of Ship Fever.
In Natural History, Andrea Barrett completes the beautiful arc of intertwined lives of a family of scientists, teachers, and innovators that she has been weaving through multiple books since her National Book Award–winning collection, Ship Fever. The six exquisite stories in Natural History are set largely in a small community in central New York state and portray some of her most beloved characters, spanning the decades between the Civil War to the present day. In "Henrietta and Her Moths," a woman tends to an insect nursery as her sister's life follows a different path. In "Open House," a young man grapples with a choice between a thrilling life spent discovering fossils and a desire to remain close to home. And in the magnificent title novella, "Natural History," Barrett deepens the connection between her characters, bringing us through to the present day and providing an unforgettable capstone.
Told with Barrett's characteristic elegance, passion for science, and wonderful eye for the natural world, the psychologically astute and moving stories gathered in this collection evoke the ways women's lives and expectations—in families, in work, and in love—have shifted across a century and more. Building upon one another, these tales brilliantly culminate to reveal how the smallest events of the past can have large reverberations across the generations, and how potent, wondrous, and strange the relationship between history and memory can be.
"An imaginative miracle woven of complexly connected stories…Immersing oneself in Natural History is an experience both bracing and magical… [T]he blurring of distinctions, of past and present, reality and fiction, is enhanced by a narrative consciousness that doesn't hover over the characters so much as live in between them, switching at will from one perspective to the next, allowing us to see the world through Henrietta's eyes as well as look at her the way others do."
― Christoph Irmscher, Wall Street Journal
"Each story here offers [Barrett's] signature gifts: lyrical distillation of scientific complexity, artful wonder at the natural world, exquisitely observed details, and prose as precise and inevitable as a mathematical proof…With their kaleidoscopic interconnectedness, the overlapping circles of Barrett's stories, from this collection as well as her earlier works, add up to something large and delightful."
― L.A. Taggart, San Francisco Chronicle
"Barrett transforms deep knowledge of history, science, and human nature into gorgeously vital and insightful stories in which every element is richly brewed, mulled, and redolent." ― Booklist (starred review)
"As always, Barrett depicts the natural world and the human heart with wonder, tenderness, and deep understanding. More superb work from an American master." ― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A] finely crafted linked collection about memory and science...Barrett offers well-observed details of the region, and Dierdre and Rose's imbalanced friendship makes for an intriguing parallel to Henrietta and Daphne, as Rose is now a schoolteacher after showing early promise while Dierdre is a star biologist. This offers rich rewards." ― Publishers Weekly
This information about Natural History was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Andrea Barrett is the author of nine previous works of fiction, including the National Book Award–winning Ship Fever―now republished by W.W. Norton―and Pulitzer Prize finalist Servants of the Map. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an NEA Fellowship, as well as a finalist for the Story Prize and a recipient of the Rea Award for the Short Story. Having lived in Rochester, New York, and western Massachusetts, Barrett now resides in the Adirondacks.
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