Books by Andrea Barrett

The Needle's Eye

by Margaret Drabble, Andrea Barrett

Simon Camish, an embittered, diffident lawyer in a loveless marriage, would not have particularly noticed Rose Vassiliou had he not been asked to drive her home one night after a dinner party. Yet at one time she had been notorious-her name constantly in the news.
Now, separated from her Greek husband, she lives alone with her three children. Despite all the efforts and sneers of her friends, she refuses to move from her slum house in a decaying neighborhood to which she has become attached. Gradually, Simon becomes aware that Rose is a woman of remarkable integrity and courage. He is drawn into her affairs when her husband takes legal action to reopen the question of custody of the children-a scheme for getting his wife back. And, while the precise nature of their ties eludes him, Simon comes to realize that Rose and her Greek ex-husband are forever and inextricably bound to each other.

The Air We Breathe: A Novel

by Andrea Barrett

"An evocative panorama of America…on the cusp of enormous change" (Newsday) by the National Book Award-winning author of Ship Fever.
In the fall of 1916, America prepares for war―but in the isolated community of Tamarack Lake, the focus is on the sick. Wealthy tubercular patients live in private cure cottages; charity patients, mainly immigrants, fill the large public sanatorium. Prisoners of routine, they take solace in gossip, rumor, and―sometimes―secret attachments. But when the well-meaning efforts of one enterprising patient lead instead to a tragic accident and a terrible betrayal, the war comes home, bringing with it a surge of anti-immigrant prejudice and vigilante sentiment.
Andrea Barrett masterfully sets this luminous novel in a historical period of great progress in science and medicine―even in the art of war. Her richly complex men and women, with their passions and vulnerabilities, engage and haunt us.

The Air We Breathe: A Novel

by Andrea Barrett

The exquisite, much-anticipated new novel by the author of Ship Fever, winner of the National Book Award. In fall 1916, Americans debate whether to enter the European war. "Preparedness parades" march and headlines report German spies. But in an isolated community in the Adirondacks, the danger is barely felt. At Tamarack Lake the focus is on the sick. Wealthy tubercular patients live in private cure cottages; charity patients, mainly immigrants, fill the large public sanatorium. For all, time stands still. Prisoners of routine and yearning for absent families, the patients, including the newly arrived Leo Marburg, take solace in gossip, rumor, and―sometimes―secret attachments.An enterprising patient initiates a weekly discussion group. When his well-meaning efforts lead instead to a tragic accident and a terrible betrayal, the war comes home, bringing with it a surge of anti-immigrant prejudice and vigilante sentiment. The conjunction of thwarted desires and political tension binds the patients so deeply that, finally, they speak about what's happened in a single voice.The Air We Breathe, though entirely self-contained, extends the web of connected characters begun with Ship Fever.

The Air We Breathe: A Novel

by Andrea Barrett

"Turbulent and dramatic, full of longing and death and lust, the yearning to cover one’s own life and way in the world." ―David Mehegan, Boston Globe

An elegant and astute tale of desire and betrayal, science and medicine, from the "genius enchantress" (Karen Russell) author of Ship Fever, winner of the National Book Award.
In the fall of 1916, America prepares for war―but in the town of Tamarack Lake, the focus is on the sick. Wealthy tubercular patients live in private cure cottages; charity patients, mainly immigrants, fill the large public sanatorium. From within their isolated community, they grapple with some of the most thrilling scientific discoveries of their time―X-ray technology, chemical and biological weapons, changing theories of atomic structure―and their limitations. Prisoners of routine, they take solace in gossip, rumor, and, sometimes, secret attachments. When the well-meaning efforts of one enterprising patient lead instead to a tragic accident and a terrible betrayal, the war comes home, bringing with it a surge of anti-immigrant prejudice. With The Air We Breathe, Andrea Barrett has crafted a "majestic, breathtaking, [and] thrilling" (San Diego Union-Tribune) novel that brilliantly illuminates the inescapable heartbreak of war.

Archangel: Fiction

by Andrea Barrett

"[Andrea Barrett's] work stands out for its sheer intelligence…The overall effect is quietly dazzling."―New York Times Book Review Winner of the National Book Award for her collection of stories Ship Fever, Andrea Barrett has become one of our most admired and beloved writers. In this magnificent new book, she unfolds five pivotal moments in the lives of her characters and in the history of knowledge.
During the summer of 1908, twelve-year-old Constantine Boyd is witness to an explosion of home-spun investigation―from experiments with cave-dwelling fish without eyes to scientifically bred crops to motorized bicycles and the flight of an early aeroplane. In 1920, a popular science writer and young widow tries, immediately after the bloodbath of the First World War, to explain the new theory of relativity to an audience (herself included) desperate to believe in an “ether of space” housing spirits of the dead. Half a century earlier, in 1873, a famous biologist struggles to maintain his sense of the hierarchies of nature as Darwin’s new theory of evolution threatens to make him ridiculous in the eyes of a precocious student. The twentieth-century realms of science and war collide in the last two stories, as developments in genetics and X-ray technology that had once held so much promise fail to protect humans―among them, a young American soldier, Constantine Boyd, sent to Archangel, Russia, in 1919―from the failures of governments and from the brutality of war.
In these brilliant fictions rich with fact, Barrett explores the thrill and sense of loss that come with scientific progress and the personal passions and impersonal politics that shape all human knowledge.

Archangel: Fiction

by Andrea Barrett

"[Andrea Barrett's] work stands out for its sheer intelligence…The overall effect is quietly dazzling."―New York Times Book Review Winner of the National Book Award for her collection of stories Ship Fever, Andrea Barrett has become one of our most admired and beloved writers. In this magnificent new book, she unfolds five pivotal moments in the lives of her characters and in the history of knowledge.
During the summer of 1908, twelve-year-old Constantine Boyd is witness to an explosion of home-spun investigation―from experiments with cave-dwelling fish without eyes to scientifically bred crops to motorized bicycles and the flight of an early aeroplane. In 1920, a popular science writer and young widow tries, immediately after the bloodbath of the First World War, to explain the new theory of relativity to an audience (herself included) desperate to believe in an “ether of space” housing spirits of the dead. Half a century earlier, in 1873, a famous biologist struggles to maintain his sense of the hierarchies of nature as Darwin’s new theory of evolution threatens to make him ridiculous in the eyes of a precocious student. The twentieth-century realms of science and war collide in the last two stories, as developments in genetics and X-ray technology that had once held so much promise fail to protect humans―among them, a young American soldier, Constantine Boyd, sent to Archangel, Russia, in 1919―from the failures of governments and from the brutality of war.
In these brilliant fictions rich with fact, Barrett explores the thrill and sense of loss that come with scientific progress and the personal passions and impersonal politics that shape all human knowledge.

Archangel: Fiction

by Andrea Barrett

"Elegantly contemplative.…[O]ffers a powerfully human sense of the struggle it takes for new ideas to dislodge old ones." ―Janet Maslin, New York Times Book Review

Dramas both personal and cosmic unfold around five pivotal moments in the history of knowledge in this collection from the "genius enchantress" (Karen Russell) author of Ship Fever, winner of the National Book Award.
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.

The Voyage of the Narwhal: A Novel

by Andrea Barrett

"A luminous work of historical fiction that explores the far reaches of the Arctic and of men's souls." ―Denver Post
Capturing a crucial moment in the history of exploration―the mid-nineteenth century romance with the Arctic―Andrea Barrett's compelling novel tells the story of a fateful expedition. Through the eyes of the ship's scholar-naturalist, Erasmus Darwin Wells, we encounter the Narwhal's crew, its commander, and the far-north culture of the Esquimaux. In counterpoint, we meet the women left behind in Philadelphia, explorers only in imagination. Together, those who travel and those who stay weave a web of myth and mystery, finally discovering what they had not sought, the secrets of their own hearts. 16 steel engravings and one map

Ship Fever: Stories

by Andrea Barrett

1996 National Book Award Winner for Fiction. The elegant short fictions gathered hereabout the love of science and the science of love are often set against the backdrop of the nineteenth century. Interweaving historical and fictional characters, they encompass both past and present as they negotiate the complex territory of ambition, failure, achievement, and shattered dreams. In "Ship Fever," the title novella, a young Canadian doctor finds himself at the center of one of history's most tragic epidemics. In "The English Pupil," Linnaeus, in old age, watches as the world he organized within his head slowly drifts beyond his reach. And in "The Littoral Zone," two marine biologists wonder whether their life-altering affair finally was worth it. In the tradition of Alice Munro and William Trevor, these exquisitely rendered fictions encompass whole lives in a brief space. As they move between interior and exterior journeys, "science is transformed from hard and known fact into malleable, strange and thrilling fictional material" (Boston Globe).

Ship Fever: Stories

by Andrea Barrett

1996 National Book Award Winner for Fiction. The elegant short fictions gathered hereabout the love of science and the science of love are often set against the backdrop of the nineteenth century. Interweaving historical and fictional characters, they encompass both past and present as they negotiate the complex territory of ambition, failure, achievement, and shattered dreams.

In "Ship Fever," the title novella, a young Canadian doctor finds himself at the center of one of history's most tragic epidemics. In "The English Pupil," Linnaeus, in old age, watches as the world he organized within his head slowly drifts beyond his reach. And in "The Littoral Zone," two marine biologists wonder whether their life-altering affair finally was worth it.

In the tradition of Alice Munro and William Trevor, these exquisitely rendered fictions encompass whole lives in a brief space. As they move between interior and exterior journeys, "science is transformed from hard and known fact into malleable, strange and thrilling fictional material" (Boston Globe).

Servants of the Map: Stories

by Andrea Barrett

"Luminous....Each [story] is rich and independent and beautiful and should draw Barrett many new admirers."―Publishers Weekly, starred review Ranging across two centuries, and from the western Himalaya to an Adirondack village, these wonderfully imagined stories and novellas travel the territories of yearning and awakening, of loss and unexpected discovery. A mapper of the highest mountain peaks realizes his true obsession. A young woman afire with scientific curiosity must come to terms with a romantic fantasy. Brothers and sisters, torn apart at an early age, are beset by dreams of reunion. Throughout, Barrett's most characteristic theme―the happenings in that borderland between science and desire―unfolds in the diverse lives of unforgettable human beings. Although each richly layered tale stands independently, readers of Ship Fever (National Book Award winner) and Barrett's extraordinary novel The Voyage of the Narwhal, will discover subtle links both among these new stories and to characters in the earlier works.

Servants of the Map: Stories

by Andrea Barrett

"Gemlike stories that sparkle with intelligence and fire." ―O, The Oprah Magazine

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, this wonderfully imagined collection from the "genius enchantress" (Karen Russell) author of Ship Fever, winner of the National Book Award, explores the crossroads of science and desire.
Servants of the Map sweeps through two centuries, from the Western Himalayas to the Adirondacks, conjuring characters that travel through the territories of yearning and awakening, of loss and unexpected discovery. A mapper of the highest mountain peaks realizes his true obsession. A young woman afire with scientific curiosity must come to terms with a romantic fantasy. Brothers and sisters, torn apart at an early age, are beset by dreams of reunion. As we move through these richly layered tales, Andrea Barrett weaves subtle connections among the stories within this collection and characters in her earlier works.

the-story-behind-the-story

by Andrea Barrett

In a splendid display of show-and-tell, 26 writers tell a story and lift the curtain to reveal how they did it. This big, beautiful anthology of short fiction is for readers, writers, and anyone curious about the mysterious processes of literary minds. All contributors have been recent faculty members of the prestigious Warren Wilson Low Residency Program, including such literary favorites as Margot Livesey, Charles Baxter, Robert Boswell, Jim Shepard, Antonya Nelson, David Shields, and the editors themselves.

Each writer was asked to submit an original story, accompanied by an essay describing the challenges of the story and how they were met. Since writers resist herding, the editors were happily surprised by the wide range of essays―"fiction writers, when given the space, think about their work very differently." We learn about the genesis of a story, how story evolves, what was eventually relinquished and why, and how a story―surprisingly―might "insist" on changing.

Arranged alphabetically by author, and beginning with Richard Russo's cogent introduction, this volume is a treasure throughout.

Natural History: Stories

by Andrea Barrett

Finalist for the 2022 Story Prize
Longlisted for the 2023 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction
Named Among the Best Fiction of 2022 by BookPage and Kirkus Reviews

A masterful new collection of interconnected stories, from the renowned National Book Award–winning author.
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. 1 illustration

Natural History: Stories

by Andrea Barrett

Finalist for the Story Prize
Longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction
A BookPage and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year

A masterful collection of interconnected stories from the "genius enchantress" (Karen Russell) author of Ship Fever, winner of the National Book Award.
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. 1 illustration

The Voyage of the Narwhal

by Andrea Barrett

"A glistening narrative, crammed full of rich, pictorial description and tingling suspense." ―Michiko Kakutani, New York Times Book Review

An intoxicating story of the thrills of exploration, the fallacy of discovery, and the inevitable costs of ambition from the "genius enchantress" (Karen Russell) author of Ship Fever, winner of the National Book Award.
The Narwhal has a simple mission: to find the remains―human and material―of a disappeared ship. But its rash and obsessive young commander, Zeke Voorhees, has ulterior motives that may spell doom for the Narwhal and its crew. His soon-to-be brother-in-law, scholar-naturalist Erasmus Darwin Wells, may be the only one aboard who can alter their fate. Back in Philadelphia, the women left behind make journeys of the imagination as they await the Narwhal’s return. Wielding her signature lyrical and precise style, Andrea Barrett unravels the mid-nineteenth-century American romance with the Arctic in a "genuine page turner that long lingers in the mind" (Philip Graham, Chicago Tribune).

Dust and Light: On the Art of Fact in Fiction

by Andrea Barrett

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A Kite in the Wind: Fiction Writers on Their Craft

by Andrea Barrett, Peter Turchi

A Kite in the Wind is an anthology of essays by 20 veteran writers and master teachers. While the contributors offer specific, practical advice on such fundamental aspects of craft as characterization, character names, the first person point of view, and unreliable narrators, they also give extended, thoughtful consideration to more sophisticated topics, including “imminence,” or the power of a sense of beginning; creating and maintaining tension; “lushness”; and the deliberate manipulation of information to create particular effects.

The essays in A Kite in the Wind begin as personal investigations — attempts to understand why a decision in a particular story or novel seemed unsuccessful; to define a quality or problem that seemed either unrecognized or unsatisfactorily defined; to understand what, despite years of experience as a fiction writer, resisted comprehension; and to pursue haunting, even unanswerable questions.

Unlike a how-to book, the anthology is less an instruction manual than it is an intimate visit with twenty very different writers as they explore topics that excite, intrigue, and even puzzle them. Each discussion uses specific examples and illustrations, including both canonical stories and novels and writing less frequently discussed, from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, by both American and international authors.

The contributors share their hard-earned insights for beginning and advanced writers with humility, wit, and compassion. The first section of the book focuses on narration, with particular attention paid to various kinds of narrators; the second, on strategic creation and presentation of character; the third, on some of the roles of the visual, beginning with establishing setting; and the fourth, on structural and organizational issues, from movement through time to the manipulation of information to create mystery and suspense. Contributors include Wilton Barnhardt, Andrea Barrett, Charles Baxter, Karen Brennan, Maud Casey, Lan Samantha Chang, Robert Cohen, Stacey D’Erasmo, Judy Doenges, Anthony Doerr, C. J. Hribal, Michael Martone, Kevin McIlvoy, Alexander Parsons, Frederick Reiken, Steven Schwartz, Dominic Smith, Debra Spark, Megan Staffel, Sarah Stone, and Peter Turchi.

Dust and Light On the Art of Fact in Fiction

by Andrea Barrett

One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025

The National Book Award-winning writer's intimate exploration of how fact is transformed into fiction.

Hailed as a "genius-enchantress" (Karen Russell) and winner of the MacArthur Fellowship, the celebrated novelist Andrea Barrett has for decades reached backward to find inspiration from the past and written acclaimed and prizewinning works of historical fiction. In Dust and Light, the first work of nonfiction of her extraordinary career, Barrett draws from that deep well of experience to explore the mysteries, methods, and delights of the form.

Inspiration found in the past, she argues, can illuminate fiction, just as dust scatters light and makes the unseen visible. Barrett writes of lessons gleaned from the classic work of some of her guiding lights (Willa Cather, Henry James, Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf), as well as the work of such contemporary masters as Hilary Mantel, Toni Morrison, Colm Tóibín, and Jesmyn Ward. She reveals how she created some of her own beloved works, taking readers on a fascinating journey into some of the largest questions in the genre: How does a writer find meaningful subject matter beyond the confines of their life? How are scraps of history found, used, misused, manipulated, and transformed into a fully formed narrative? And what are the perils as well as the potential of this process?

Building on pieces originally published in leading literary magazines and featured in The Best American Essays, Dust and Light is an elegant exploration of the hazy borderlands of fiction sewn from the materials of history. Filled with profound insights, it will be a delight for any devoted fiction readers, and of great use to aspiring writers too.