SECRET HARMONIES. [Paperback]

Andrea. Barrett (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: DELACORTE. NY 1989; Uncorr. proof wraps edition (1989)
• ASIN: B000VARW8W
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Andrea Barrett was born in Boston, MA in 1954 and grew up on Cape Cod. She studied biology at Union College, in Schenectady, NY and started writing fiction in her twenties, after several brief stints in graduate school. She lived in Rochester, NY for many years and now lives in western Massachusetts with her husband, photographer Barry Goldstein. She's the author of six novels, most recently THE AIR WE BREATHE, and two collections of stories: SHIP FEVER, which received the 1996 National Book Award, and SERVANTS OF THE MAP, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a novel in the higher range, August 1, 2001

By 

Just_Karen (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Secret Harmonies (Paperback)

I was transported by this story of Reba, the musically gifted daughter of a musically gifted chicken farmer. Yes, the setting is rough; the towns are small, the people are poor, but there is huge beauty in this small setting. So many plot elements affected me; her early years singing in church while stoned on hash, the story of her pregnancy, her painful relationship with her lonely brother, her self-expiating string of affairs with married men.

Reba's lovers see her as a naive poor girl, easy pickings, not important. She's exploited in a painfully real way, seduced as much by their privilege as by their sexual advances. Novels that include an examination of the American class structure make me uncomfortable. I think that's the point.

But this isn't polemic; it's a lovely and realistic story. The peripheral characters, mostly her family members, are sketched in all their weird beauty; a sister with Down's syndrome who writes a poetic epic, her lonely brother, barely able to master his own desire for Reba, her absent father, her mechanical mother.

I don't know anything about musical theory, about scales and chords, but this novel actually communicated how the world is percieved by the musically oriented. This novel is beautifully-written without ever becoming self-consciously poetic. Every word in here works.

2 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Is that it?, March 4, 2000

By 

Manola Sommerfeld (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secret Harmonies (Paperback)

My biggest complaint about this book is that the end leaves you hanging on. There is no good closure. Usually i like to have a sense of conclusion, but this has to be one of the most abrupt endings i recall.

I don't particularly like to read about this topic, depressed economy and uneducated people trying to make ends meet while drinking heavily (a personal bias of mine), but someone else might find the book some virtues.