Ship Fever: Stories

Ranging across two centuries, and from the western Himalaya to an Adirondack village, these wonderfully imagined stories and novellas travel the territories of yearning and awakening, of loss and unexpected discovery. A mapper of the highest mountain peaks realizes his true obsession. A young woman afire with scientific curiosity must come to terms with a romantic fantasy. Brothers and sisters, torn apart at an early age, are beset by dreams of reunion. Throughout, Barrett's most characteristic theme — the happenings in that borderland between science and desire — unfolds in the diverse lives of unforgettable human beings. Although each richly layered tale stands independently, readers of (National Book Award winner) and Barrett's extraordinary novel , will discover subtle links both among these new stories and to characters in the earlier works.

Capturing a crucial moment in the history of exploration — the mid-nineteenth century romance with the Arctic — Andrea Barrett's compelling novel tells the story of a fateful expedition. Through the eyes of the ship's scholar-naturalist, Erasmus Darwin Wells, we encounter the 's crew, its commander, and the far-north culture of the Esquimaux. In counterpoint, we meet the women left behind in Philadelphia, explorers only in imagination. Together, those who travel and those who stay weave a web of myth and mystery, finally discovering what they had not sought, the secrets of their own hearts.

A lyrical, moving novel of the choices and confusions that face a married woman whose understanding of herself explodes on first contact with the energies of China and a Chinaman.

Grace Hoffmeier is never quite sure where to invest her energies: in her dying marriage to star scientist Walter or in the possible affairs that flare so startlingly before her like fireworks; in her work or in her home; in things or in people; in the past or in the future.

On an eye-opening trip to a China that has ripped itself apart, yet again, at its very heart in Tiananmen Square, Grace finds — with guidance from unexpected quarters — that what you can choose between is not always your choice to make. The real China soon crackles into being before Grace; its fire and light illuminate for her paths old and new, and a new life in a new kingdom.

Set in New England, The Forms of Water is a superb exploration of the complexities of family life, grief and the ties that continue to bind us to the past. At the age of 80, Brendan Auberon, a former monk, is now confined to a wheelchair in a nursing home. As a last wish, he is desperate to catch a final glimpse of the 200 acres of woodland on which once stood his parental home. Half a century ago, the owners of the land were evicted from their homes and the land was flooded to create a reservoir which would provide water for the big city. The Forms of Water is the story of what happens when Brendan convinces his staid nephew Henry to hijack the nursing home van to make this ancestral visit. What begins as a joke, becomes infinitely more complex as the family roles begin to rearrange themselves. A rich and absorbing look at the complexities of family life, at grief and at the ties that continue to bind us to the past.

"An evocative panorama of America…on the cusp of enormous change" () by the National Book Award-winning author of .

In the fall of 1916, America prepares for war — but in the community of Tamarack Lake, the focus is on the sick. Wealthy tubercular patients live in private cure cottages; charity patients, mainly immigrants, fill the large public sanatorium. Prisoners of routine, they take solace in gossip, rumor, and — sometimes — secret attachments. But when the well-meaning efforts of one enterprising patient lead to a tragic accident and a terrible betrayal, the war comes home, bringing with it a surge of anti-immigrant prejudice and vigilante sentiment.