SOURCE: “Familiar Capability,” in Hudson Review, Spring, 1997, pp. 159–65.

In the following excerpt, Filbin calls Barnes's Cross Channel “charming, brilliant, and sui generis.”

While first novels often burst with literary energy and the raw emotion franchised to the young, the writing game demands other qualifications if the successful novice is to make it a vocation. Producing an interesting book every few years requires self-sharpening powers of insight, an inventory of questions about the human condition, and seriously established work habits. This is not to deny that even the immortals had dry seasons and ignition failures; Zola wrote masterpieces like L'Assommoir and The Debacle, but he penned his share of duds, too. Try The Sin of Father Mouret for soppy sentiment, a weep through the woods that goes wrong from the very beginning. But lapses aside, writers can usually tell when they've tapped into the vein. As discouraging as any...