In the following excerpt, Lezard compliments the dialogue and character development in Lucid Stars.
Novelists, since Flaubert I suppose, have tried conscientiously to be as true to the Inner Experi...
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In the following positive review of The Voyage of the Narwhal, Graham praises Barrett's detailed historical research.
As readers of her National Book Award-winning story collection Ship Feve...
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In the following review, Anshaw commends Barrett's scrupulous research and use of detail in The Voyage of the Narwhal.
At first blush, The Voyage of the Narwhal might seem an odd book for co...
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In the following review, Martelle explores the major thematic concerns of Ship Fever and The Voyage of the Narwhal.
As a child growing up on Massachusetts' Cape Cod, Andrea Barrett was mesme...
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In the following review, Walters commends Barrett's convincing portrayal of the “intellectual universe of the mid-nineteenth-century naturalist” in The Voyage of the Narwhal.
E...
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In the following review, Taylor offers a positive assessment of The Voyage of the Narwhal, calling the novel “half a boy's adventure story of the highest class, half a kind of meditation...
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In the following excerpt, Balée offers a thematic and stylistic analysis of The Voyage of the Narwhal.
A fascination with all things Victorian continues in fiction as well as in film. Clearl...
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In the following negative review, Hines notes that Barrett is a skilled writer, but faults the stories in Ship Fever for lacking emotional power and depth.
In a recent interview, Andrea Barrett sai...
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In the following positive review, Taylor compliments Barrett's psychological insight in The Middle Kingdom.
Although there is no information to this effect anywhere on its jacket, The Middle...
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In the following excerpt, Bradham commends the engaging style and layers of detail found in Lucid Stars.
Andrea Barrett's Lucid Stars is about the ex-wives and children of a man whose indiff...
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In the following review, Powers offers a positive assessment of The Middle Kingdom.
Andrea Barrett's third novel, The Middle Kingdom, is the story of Grace Doerring (formerly Hoffmeier, form...
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In the following review, Berch offers a positive assessment of The Forms of Water.
A well-structured novel, like a well-designed house, can be quite pleasurable no matter how it is furnished. Wheth...
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In the following positive review, Benedict calls The Forms of Water an “elegiac” and “intelligent” novel.
A certain appetite for land (an appetite remarkable for its fie...
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In the following review, Goodrich offers a mixed assessment of The Forms of Water.
[In The Forms of Water] Henry Auberon has returned with his Uncle Brendan to Coreopsis Heights, the real-estate su...
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In the following excerpt, McGraw explores the unifying thematic material in Ship Fever.
The stories and novella in Andrea Barrett's Ship Fever are bound by a clear thematic unity: all of the...
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In the following essay, Baker provides an overview of Barrett's life and work, as well as discussing her recent critical success.
Rochester, N.Y., home to corporate headquarters for Eastman ...
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In the following mixed review, Yardley admires the insight and intelligence of The Voyage of the Narwhal, but derides the novel as “didactic.”
This sixth work of fiction [The Voyage o...
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Should Christopher Hitchens win a National Book Award, you can be sure he won't thank any higher powers.The author, columnist and commentator was nominated for "God Is Not Great," a polemic with a ...
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Critical Review by Nicholas Lezard
Hitchens among book award finalists
