Not absolutely primo Voyage of the Narwhal Barrett, but I always love her golden age of science exploration subject matter and how she treats it, so I was happy. ( )

Andrea Barrett demonstrates yet again how life tells its stories through aspiration, work, dreams, and disillusion of everyday people. She expertly listens and illuminates for us the inner journeys of a wide variety of sympathetic characters in her collection of stories, Natural History. It is a bravura performance from a well-loved and multi-awarded author.

The stories feature a principal group of characters; Henrietta Atkins, born in what might be the Finger Lakes district of New York before the Civil War, provides the focus for 150 years of storytelling. You wouldn’t, however, call this a multigenerational saga, because the short pieces here bring dramatic moments in people’s lives into clear focus, leaving other broad dramas and events out of the scheme.

Barrett introduces her characters and we come to know them very, very well. Henrietta is an accomplished amateur natural historian, a type with a long, illustrious history. She teaches high school science, and guides extra-curricular science activities. She eschews one potential proposal through an odd, self-conscious reaction, but does not go loveless through life.

Strong relationships between strong women abound in this collection, and provide some of the most gratifying reading. We witness the great and the tragic events of the times—the Civil War and the First World War both occur during Henrietta’s life, along with the 1918 influenza epidemic, the sensational early days of flying by celebrated pilots, and the Volstead Act, inaugurating Prohibition. Throughout, women reinforce each other during strife-torn times, write ground-breaking scientific papers, defy death in flying machines, and pass learning on the the next generation through wisdom and compassion.

Andrea Barrett’s power of observation, her kindness toward her readers, and her uncanny felicity with the language lead us to hours of delight and wonder. I recommend this very, very highly. ( )

I discovered Andrea Barrett many years ago when I picked up her National Book Award winning volume of short stories Ship Fever and I have been pleased to have read other of her books since then, including Servants of the Map and The Voyage of the Narwhal.

Ship Fever included the story The Marburg Sisters who had an interest in science. Barrett continued to imagine the sisters family lineage and the source of their interest in nature and science, creating an entire family tree of people who appear in the stories in Natural History.

I loved these interrelated stories that span across history, the women who dedicate their lives to a love of nature and the fulfillment of their natural curiosity, but are caught up in family needs and demands.

There is Henrietta who is a stellar teacher of natural history and a loving aunt. As a girl, she was hired to help care for the children of a local family and became involved with preserving letters from the sons fighting in the Civil War, allowing insight into the experience of war and its trauma, including bodily harm that handicaps for life and the mental anguish that drove a son into hiding. As a teacher, she shares the wonder of the world with students, encouraging students with ability toward higher education. She is tied to her home and family’s needs when she could have become something more, but her impact on her students is evidenced in the stories.

The men are caught between expectations to take on the family business and the lure of leaving for an education and career in the greater world. Prohibition forces a winery to get creative to survive. A fearless girl grows up to be a stunt pilot.

The stories give insight into the limitations female scientists have always faced, the relationships between them and their peers, and into the changing nature of the study of the natural sciences.

In the last story, Natural History, we meet Rose Marburg who first appeared in Ship Fever. She gave up lab work to teach where her ancestor Harriet had taught; “what a business science had become,” she shares, “the wonder, gone.” She writes about women scientists, and is writing about Henrietta.

Often I don’t know what I mean; when I try to say what I mean, I lie; it seems I only tell the truth when I’m talking about someone else. In those sketches of Henrietta’s world, my own experiences had metamorphosed.

from Natural History by Andrea Barrett

“A lot of those women naturalists are really interesting,” a woman tells her, “Not just the work they did, but how they did it.” More than interesting, I would comment; they are fascinating as fictional historical figures.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through Edelweiss. My review is fair and unbiased. ( )