Overview

"A young boy comes of age amid an explosion of homespun investigations. A widowed science writer tries to reconcile the influence of emotion on scientific theory. A famous biologist finds himself outpaced by his students, even as he seeks to teach them. As the characters in this ""elegant, thought-provoking"" (Connie Ogle, Miami Herald) collection witness the world transform around them through groundbreaking discoveries—the flight of an early aeroplane, Darwin’s theory of evolution, developments in genetics and X-ray technology—they grapple with the thrill and loss that accompanies scientific progress, and the personal passions and impersonal politics that shape all human knowledge. Throughout these deftly plotted stories, Andrea Barrett weaves subtle connections among the tales within this collection and characters in her earlier works."

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9781324066002

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Reviews

An elegant new story collection... Barrett frequently telescopes out of human frailty to an almost cosmic realm.--John Freeman Boston Globe An evocative, sepia-toned beauty.... Lovely, lambent prose, balanced and graceful.--Michael Lindgren Washington Post Barrett's consummate historical stories of family, ambition, science, and war are intellectually stimulating, lushly emotional, and altogether pleasurable.--Donna Seaman Booklist, Starred Review Pulls us relentlessly away from false comforts, into the dazzling, often chaotic, world as it really is.--April Bernard New York Review of Books The award-winning author returns with another collection of stories distinguished by uncommon scope and depth.... Barrett's stories rank with the best.-- Kirkus Reviews At last! It's finally here: the astonishing new collection from that genius-enchantress, Andrea Barrett. Who but Barrett can take on the inscrutable elegance of the cosmos and the messy complexity of the human heart in a single story? In her joy-to-read prose, with scientific precision and warm insight, Barrett translates the unknown into our world of reference. Her characters' thirst for discovery is contagious, and every story in Archangel is suffused with the most miraculous horizon light.--Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove Barrett, whose novel Ship Fever won the 1996 National Book Award, dwells on the intersections between science... and ethics.... Her training in biology and her meticulous research allow Barrett to speak of facts with authority, but in this powerful collection of five long stories, the facts come through the eyes of lost, lonely, elusive investigators. ...[T]here is indeed a sense of expansion as one travels onward in Barrett's world, and pleasure in watching it fill out.-- Publishers Weekly Does anyone write with a calmer authority than Andrea Barrett? ...Archangel... ranks right up there with her National Book Award-winning Ship Fever.--Lloyd Sachs Chicago Tribune

Author Information

Andrea Barrett is the author of Natural History, the National Book Award–winning Ship Fever, and Pulitzer Prize finalist Servants of the Map, among other works of fiction. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Award, she lives in the Adirondacks.

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