Natural History

July 25, 2022
National Book Award winner Barrett (Ship Fever) offers a finely crafted linked collection about memory and science. “Wonders of the Shore,” named after a fictional 1889 study of marine life by Daphne Bannister, introduces the close and longtime friendship between Daphne and Henrietta Atkins, a lepidopterist and schoolteacher in Central New York. In the brilliant and complex “The Regimental History,” 10-year-old Henrietta takes dictation for a family whose two sons enlisted in the Union Army and catalogs the sons’ letters. The story ends more than a quarter century later with a meeting between Henrietta and the soldiers’ nephew with an amateur historian, in which Henrietta’s sharp memory yields striking revelations. The highlight, “The Accident,” features Henrietta’s niece Caroline, whose account of a life-changing aviation disaster Daphne retells after meeting Caroline at an air show in 1922. In the lengthy title story, which becomes a bit diffuse with its dizzying blending of family trees, old friends Dierdre Banks and Rose Marburg, a descendent of Henrietta, attend an annual retreat of biologists in the Adirondacks in 2018. Still, Barrett offers well-observed details of the region, and Dierdre and Rose’s imbalanced friendship makes for an intriguing parallel to Henrietta and Daphne, as Rose is now a schoolteacher after showing early promise while Dierdre is a star biologist. This offers rich rewards.