Natural History

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“A genius-enchantress. Who but Andrea Barrett can take on the inscrutable elegance of the cosmos and the messy complexity of the human heart in a single story?” “There is [in Andrea Barrett’s writing] simply a sustained beauty of phrasing, a close care for the thing to be said and the best way to say it, that blend of precision and appropriateness that has always characterized the best prose, an attentiveness to the truth of human feeling that is in itself a supremely civilized value.” “Andrea Barrett the storyteller pulls us relentlessly away from false comforts, into the dazzling, often chaotic, world as it really is.” “Andrea Barrett does not flinch from large subjects, yet her uncanny investigations into human curiosity are sensual and soul-enhancing, and always underlit by splendid intelligence.” “In Barrett’s hands, science comes alive for the reader—never staid or inflexible, but bursting with energy and ambiguity, a source of adventure, discovery, solace, and, for some characters, devastation.” “To call Barrett our poet laureate of science is perfectly apropos, as long as we recognize that her specialty is the heart.” “[Andrea Barrett’s] ability to navigate the universe’s deepest mysteries with such a gentle touch is a marvel in itself.” Named One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2022 by , and A masterful new collection of interconnected stories, from the renowned National Book Award–winning author. An imaginative miracle woven of complexly connected stories…Immersing oneself in 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. 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. Barrett depicts the natural world and the human heart with wonder, tenderness, and deep understanding. More superb work from an American master. 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. A finely crafted linked collection…This offers rich rewards. US

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