Magpies has won the Florida Book Awards Gold Medal for General Fiction
Publisher's Weekly writes:
"Barrett portrays adult lives with minimal flourishes and a powerful command of setting. Florida is electric with the tension of "all that can happen"--hurricanes, sinkholes, and a boom-and-bust history. It becomes as eerie as it is richly imagined..." Read the full review here.
In The Rumpus, Joseph Olshan reviews Magpies: "Sentence for sentence, Barrett is a superb writer. Her work brims with original ideas, questions and philosophical musings, the product of a probing intelligence and a highly literate sensibility. But what separates her from many contemporary short fiction writers is her consummate story-telling ability." Read the full review here.
Lynne Barrett belongs in the top tier of short-story writers in America today. Her unforgettable characters, poker-face wit, and sly plots make for an intensely enjoyable experience. The title story should be snapped up by anthologies. Barrett’s male characters are every bit as believable as her female characters, and the breadth of detail is both natural and mind-expanding. You want to read her work: it’s hilarious-funny and sophisticated-funny and moving-funny, and withal shines a clarity that comes from the subtle beauty of her sentences.
—Kelly Cherry, author of The Woman Who
It is entirely impossible to predict what you’re going to get when you start a Lynne Barrett story: a taut tale of adultery and murder, a wry evocation of romance among the dot.com bubble, a gossip columnist who spits toads. What you do know is that you’ll keep reading—for the vibrant prose, the keen insights, and the remarkable depth of feeling. Magpies is a stone cold triumph.
—Steve Almond, author of Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life
Book Description: In Magpies, Lynne Barrett’s characters move through the past decade’s glitter and darkness. From the Internet’s fragmented pages to a gossip columnist’s sweet poison to the ABCs of a hurricane season, these tales explore story form and storytelling as a means of connection, betrayal, and survival for characters who learn, sometimes too late, the value of what’s grasped and what’s lost.
The cover image for Magpies comes from a painting by artist Sterling Mulbry.
You can see more of her work at her website.
"Barrett portrays adult lives with minimal flourishes and a powerful command of setting. Florida is electric with the tension of "all that can happen"--hurricanes, sinkholes, and a boom-and-bust history. It becomes as eerie as it is richly imagined..." Read the full review here.
In The Rumpus, Joseph Olshan reviews Magpies: "Sentence for sentence, Barrett is a superb writer. Her work brims with original ideas, questions and philosophical musings, the product of a probing intelligence and a highly literate sensibility. But what separates her from many contemporary short fiction writers is her consummate story-telling ability." Read the full review here.
Lynne Barrett belongs in the top tier of short-story writers in America today. Her unforgettable characters, poker-face wit, and sly plots make for an intensely enjoyable experience. The title story should be snapped up by anthologies. Barrett’s male characters are every bit as believable as her female characters, and the breadth of detail is both natural and mind-expanding. You want to read her work: it’s hilarious-funny and sophisticated-funny and moving-funny, and withal shines a clarity that comes from the subtle beauty of her sentences.
—Kelly Cherry, author of The Woman Who
It is entirely impossible to predict what you’re going to get when you start a Lynne Barrett story: a taut tale of adultery and murder, a wry evocation of romance among the dot.com bubble, a gossip columnist who spits toads. What you do know is that you’ll keep reading—for the vibrant prose, the keen insights, and the remarkable depth of feeling. Magpies is a stone cold triumph.
—Steve Almond, author of Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life
Book Description: In Magpies, Lynne Barrett’s characters move through the past decade’s glitter and darkness. From the Internet’s fragmented pages to a gossip columnist’s sweet poison to the ABCs of a hurricane season, these tales explore story form and storytelling as a means of connection, betrayal, and survival for characters who learn, sometimes too late, the value of what’s grasped and what’s lost.
The cover image for Magpies comes from a painting by artist Sterling Mulbry.
You can see more of her work at her website.
More News & Reviews
Magpies among the New Fiction at the
Santa Monica Library. Photo by Mel Ryane.
Santa Monica Library. Photo by Mel Ryane.
Why Magpies? You can read how Lynne got to this title over on the blog.
Laura Richardson's interview with Lynne about Magpies, plot, editing, and more is here at Sliver of Stone.
Chauncey Mabe asks: "Why does Lynne Barrett hate me?" in his review of Magpies.
Ewa Joseffson, Flavorpill Miami, writes:
Miami author Lynne Barrett has done much for the literary community around these parts, as both the founding editor of Gulf Stream Magazine and the founder and editor of the Florida Book Review. Her third collection of short stories melds various styles and subjects, from the dot.com bubble (written with actual links in hyperblue, underlined font) and a sort of magical realism story about a gossip columnist — tales delineating the last decade's rapid move from boom to bust in an aesthetic of prose that's just as unpredictable as the times Barrett is describing. On her website, she writes: "...there are two human sides to magpie acquisitiveness: we can identify with the stubbornness of unreasonable desire, but we also fear it in others."
ISBN 978-0-88748-543-5
Carnegie Mellon University Press
$17.95, paperback
Now available through your favorite bookseller or from Cornell University Press Services 1-800-666-2211
Carnegie Mellon University Press
$17.95, paperback
Now available through your favorite bookseller or from Cornell University Press Services 1-800-666-2211
