In 1764, two Englishwomen set out to prove that swallows--contrary to the great Linnaeus's belief--do not hibernate underwater. But they must be patient and experiment in secret, such actions being inappropriate for the female of the species. In 1862, a hopeless naturalist heads off for yet another journey, though he can't seem to rid his conscience of the thousands of animals that have already died in his service. In 1971, a pregnant young woman, ill at ease with her socially superior husband and his stepchildren, hears of a Tierra del Fuegan taken hostage by the commander of the Beagle in 1835. This unwilling specimen was, we read, "captured, exiled, re-educated; then returned, abused by his family, finally re-accepted. Was he happy? Or was he saying that as a way to spite his captors? Darwin never knew." Many of the characters who populate Andrea Barrett's National Book Award-winning collection, Ship Fever, feel similarly displaced in the world. They long to prove themselves in both science and love, but are often thwarted by gender, social position, or the prevailing order. In "The Behavior of the Hawkweeds," the wife of a genetics professor has learned that each narrative of discovery is matched by one, if not more, "in which science is not just unappreciated, but bent by loneliness and longing." Barrett's astonishing tales of ambition and isolation convey the meaning and feeling behind the patterns--scientific and emotional--but slip free of easy closure. The two women in "Rare Bird," like the swallows, depart England for more conducive climes, or so the brother of one believes. The reader is left to hope, and imagine. Much has been made of Andrea Barrett's interlacing of history, knowledge, and fact--and rightly so. But equal attention should be paid to the brilliant serenity and exactitude of her style.


From Publishers Weekly
The quantifiable truths of science intersect with the less easily measured precincts of the heart in these eight seductively stylish tales. In the graphic title novella, a self-doubting, idealistic Canadian doctor's faith in science is sorely tested in 1847 when he takes a hospital post at a quarantine station flooded with diseased, dying Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine. The story, which deftly exposes English and Canadian prejudice against the Irish, turns on the doctor's emotions, oscillating between a quarantined Irish woman and a wealthy Canadian lady, his onetime childhood playmate. In "The English Pupil," Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus, who brought order to the natural world with his system of nomenclature, battles the disorder of his own aging mind as he suffers from paralysis and memory loss at age 70. In "The Behavior of the Hawkweeds," a precious letter drafted by Austrian monk Gregor Mendel, who discovered the laws of heredity, reverberates throughout the narrator's marriage to her husband, an upstate New York geneticist. Barrett (The Forms of Water) uses science as a prism to illuminate, in often unsettling ways, the effects of ambition, intuition and chance on private and professional lives. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


New York Times Book Review
Her work stands out for its sheer intelligence....The overall effect is quietly dazzling.


The New Yorker
The title novella is devastating: as with every story here, you enter right into it, and cannot leave it entirely behind.


The New York Times Book Review, Thomas Mallon
. . . stands out for its sheer intelligence . . . The overall effect is quietly dazzling. . . .


From Booklist
Barrett, author of The Middle Kingdom (1991), has used science as a conduit to understanding the human psyche in this gorgeously imagined story collection. She mixes historical figures, such as Gregor Mendel and Carolus Linnaeus, with those of her own invention in tales about the quest for insights into the workings of the natural world, including the human heart. The title piece, a gripping novella, takes place during Ireland's Great Famine, when tens of thousands made the cruel transatlantic journey to Canada, only to suffer the horrors of a raging typhus epidemic. A young, disenchanted Canadian doctor agrees to work at a quarantine station in the hope of impressing the woman he loves, but he is in for a rude shock. The understaffed station is in a state of absolute crisis, and emaciated immigrants are dying by the hundreds. In a quieter, more contemporary vein, Barrett combines science and love in "The Littoral Zone," a story about two marine biologists who fall in love, much to the dismay of their respective families. Barrett's stories are precise and concentrated, containing a truly remarkable wealth of psychology and social commentary. Donna Seaman


Book Description
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).


From the Author
After writing four novels in quick succession, I felt a longing to try something new - new voices, new approaches, new lengths and shapes," Barrett says about the writing of her book. "Ship Fever grew from that longing, with the collection as a whole evolving from the stories themselves, rather than from any preconceived notion. Although the stories differ from much of my earlier work because of their focus on history, writing them felt like a natural extension - I've always relied on research to uncover other people's lives and help me invent interesting situations. I knew as little, initially, about the Chinese doctors in The Middle Kingdom, or the elderly monk in The Forms of Water, as I did about these biologists. My background is a little unusual for a writer; as a young woman, very much influenced by growing up on Cape Cod and by my love of the ocean and the natural world, I decided to be a biologist. I majored in biology in college, but not until a very brief stay in a graduate zoology program did I understand that I wasn't cut out to be a scientist. What I'd really wanted to be was a version of Darwin or Wallace; I wanted to see and describe and appreciate and name, not to analyze. Slowly I learned that those were the traits of a naturalist - a 19th-century profession. After I abandoned science, a brief but intense bout of studying history weaned me from the academic life for good; once more it was the stories of the field that captured me. I'm a slow learner, but at that point I finally turned to writing fiction. Still, science, particularly the history of science, never lost its fascination for me. I'm married to a scientist; many of my friends are scientists; for a while I edited medical and nursing books. And as I started writing these new stories I found myself driven back to the people and situations that had captivated me as a young woman. What was it like to be Linnaeus, naming plants and animals for the first time? Or Mendel, ignored and despised? Those scientists I'd once glimpsed briefly at a marine-biology station - what might go on in their interior lives? What about the women I knew who had gone on to be successful scientists? If I'd been a doctor with a scientific mind in the 1840s, and was confronted with an epidemic disease caused by unknown factors, what would I have done? Writing these tales, I felt as though I'd finally found a way to bring together science, history, and fiction - the three great, seemingly disparate, loves of my life. As if the long route I'd traveled in my writing, swinging wide through explorations of family life and contemporary love, China and a village lost to water, had led me back home after all.


About the Author
Andrea Barrett grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and attended Union College in Schenectady, New York, where she studied biology. She has written five novels as well as many short stories, and teaches in the M.F.A. Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She and her husband live in Rochester, New York.

ANNOTATION

The love of science, the science of love--and the struggle to reconcile the two--are the subjects of this remarkable collection, stories and a novella. Interweaving historical and fictional characters, these stories move between past and present as they negotiate the complex territory of ambition, failure, achievement, and shattered dreams.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

1996 National Book Award Winner for Fiction. The elegant short fictions gatheredhereabout 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).

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The quantifiable truths of science intersect with the less easily measured precincts of the heart in these eight seductively stylish tales. In the graphic title novella, a self-doubting, idealistic Canadian doctor's faith in science is sorely tested in 1847 when he takes a hospital post at a quarantine station flooded with diseased, dying Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine. The story, which deftly exposes English and Canadian prejudice against the Irish, turns on the doctor's emotions, oscillating between a quarantined Irish woman and a wealthy Canadian lady, his onetime childhood playmate. In ``The English Pupil,'' Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus, who brought order to the natural world with his system of nomenclature, battles the disorder of his own aging mind as he suffers from paralysis and memory loss at age 70. In ``The Behavior of the Hawkweeds,'' a precious letter drafted by Austrian monk Gregor Mendel, who discovered the laws of heredity, reverberates throughout the narrator's marriage to her husband, an upstate New York geneticist. Barrett (The Forms of Water) uses science as a prism to illuminate, in often unsettling ways, the effects of ambition, intuition and chance on private and professional lives. (Jan.)

Thomas Mallon

"Her work stands out for its sheer intelligence....The overall effect is quietly dazzling." -- The New York Times Book Review

Diane Cole

"An extraordinary short story collection....Barrett blends a sure grasp of the history and method of science into each of her evocative tales." -- Chicago Tribune

Diane Cole - Chicago Tribune

[An] extraordinary short story collection￯﾿ﾽ.[Barrett] blends a sure grasp of the history and method of science into each of her evocative tales.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING