Archangel fiction
During the summer of 1908, twelve-year-old Constantine Boyd is witness to an explosion of home-spun investigation--from experiments with cave-dwelling fish without eyes to scientifically bred crops to motorized bicycles and the flight of an early aeroplane. In 1920, a popular science writer and youn...
| Main Author: | Barrett, Andrea. |
|---|---|
| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
W.W. Norton & Company,
[2013]
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| Edition: | First edition |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: |
During the summer of 1908, twelve-year-old Constantine Boyd is witness to an explosion of home-spun investigation--from experiments with cave-dwelling fish without eyes to scientifically bred crops to motorized bicycles and the flight of an early aeroplane. In 1920, a popular science writer and young widow tries, immediately after the bloodbath of the First World War, to explain the new theory of relativity to an audience (herself included) desperate to believe in an "ether of space" housing spirits of the dead. Half a century earlier, in 1873, a famous biologist struggles to maintain his sense of the hierarchies of nature as Darwin's new theory of evolution threatens to make him ridiculous in the eyes of a precocious student. The twentieth-century realms of science and war collide in the last two stories, as developments in genetics and X-ray technology that had once held so much promise fail to protect humans--among them, a young American soldier, Constantine Boyd, sent to Archangel, Russia, in 1919--from the failures of governments and from the brutality of war.--Publisher description. |
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| Physical Description: |
238 pages ; 22 cm |
| ISBN: |
9780393240009 (hbk.) 0393240002 (hbk.) |
| Author Notes: |
She writes short stories and novels. Her short story collections include Servants of the Map, Archangel, and Ship Fever and Other Stories, which won the National Book Award in 1996 for the short story collection. She received the Distinguished Story Citation from Best American Short Stories in 1995 for The Littoral Zone and the 2015 Rea Award for the Short Story. Her short fiction has appeared in periodicals such as Mademoiselle and Prairie Schooner. Her novels include The Voyage of the Narwhal, Lucid Stars, Secret Harmonies, The Middle Kingdom, and The Forms of Water. (Bowker Author Biography) |