Brown Water Cafe is the story of Lee Francis and the cross country road trip he takes to attend an old friend's wedding and to try to understand the present state of American society. It appears to Lee that people in this country are becoming more and more philosophically lost. Their lives revolve around the most trivial and superficial aspects of existence with little sense of a greater context - a context that could enrich people's lives and prevent them from hurting each other. Lee feels that people are symbolically, once again, looking to the heavens for "God", but now they are seeing ... UFOs. Carl Jung believed that people project their unconscious onto unexplainable objects they see in the sky. Could Americans be projecting their ideas about God or that greater context onto UFOs? Lee wonders if, by asking average Americans about UFOs, one could gain some kind of insight into the American situation in the nineties.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Local author Bill Barrett has skillfully transformed the American distraction with UFO investigations into a poetic quest for God and the understanding of our country's mentality. Along the way, Francis asks waitresses, farmers and anyone who appears to be receptive for their thoughts on UFOs. In the end, Barrett gives us his take on reality, love and the inspiring New Mexico terrain, emphasizing open-mindedness all the way. He admits that most people exist on a superficial level, thriving on triviality, but they still possess the potential for profundity.
Brown Water Cafe is clearly a work with a message. Though Barrett clarifies the American mentality, he leaves several issues open for the readers to interpret for themselves, as any exceptional author should. He has managed, in a mere 111 pages, to revive confidence in the American people, the existence of goodwill and the power of individuality. -- Weekly Alibi, Albuquerque, Feb. 25, 1998
One of the most curious, and funniest little books to come across our desk lately is local writer and musician Bill Barrett's Brown Water Cafe. Part Odyssey, part tabloid spoof, it's an "investigation" into '90s American mores as, perhaps, evidenced by the fascination with UFOs, all by way of a cross-country auto trip from New Mexico to Connecticut and back. -- Tom Collins, Santa Fe Reporter, Sept. 3, 1997
The marriage of words and hand-drawn sketches has always been a good union. I mean, can you now picture Hunter S. Thompson's Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas without Ralph Steadman's spindly illustrations or The New Yorker without its satiric and highly personal drawings? Brown Water Cafe, interspersed with its Far-Side-esque illustrations (Barrett's an equally good drawer as he is a writer) is a quirky, cross-country novel aiming to debunk modern American society. Lee Francis, Cafe's protagonist and traveler, believes that people are now looking for God in the heavens, but only seeing UFOs, sets out across America to prove his theory. But Barrett takes this one step further: He philosophizes our need, as lonely and confused mortals, to project our unconscious thoughts and needs to the sky. Could it be true? It's all in the Brown Water Cafe. -- Rob Hill, Bikini Magazine, May 1998
From the Publisher
Brown Water Cafe takes a unique approach to the UFO subject. It is more of a study of American society than a story about UFOs. Because there is not definitive proof that UFOs exist or do not exist, what an individual thinks about them says more about the individual than the UFO. In addition to writing the text, Bill Barrett drew the pen and ink illustrations that appear within the text and painted the watercolor paintings that appear on the front and back cover. If you have an interest in road trips, coffee, UFOs, diners or God, we think you will enjoy Brown Water Cafe.
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