Maria's review
The Air We Breathe: A Novel by Andrea Barrett
I love Andrea Barrett - her stories are the ones I often find lurking in back corners of my brain, with indeterminate heritage. As in, I often think that the historic narratives she's invented are in fact dreams I've had, or stories I've heard about my ancestors. Servants of the Map did this to me especially. I think I can attribute this to Barrett's grace. She writes about science in such a way that I think I understand it, and because it seems so organic to me, I think it came from somewhere other than a book. Not so, as it happens, but her writing is so clear that sometimes I feel, even as I'm reading it, that she is channeling my own thoughts. Mind you, the thoughts Barrett has are not thoughts I'd be getting to on my own. No wonder she won a MacArthur Fellowship. I love her writing about science and it's implications on the human heart. This is a wonderful and enlightening book about a tuberculosis sanatorium and the patients within it, taking place during WWI. I learned a lo...more
