California Literary Review

Web Site:

http://myjaneausten.com

Books on Amazon:

My first book which came out in 1980, was a work of non-fiction, Getting Even With Getting Old.

In my fiction (under the pseudonym JULIA BARRETT) I have addressed myself to the work of Jane Austen, attempting to pick up Austen's wonderful creations, to extend our encounters with them while keeping with her own themes, speaking in her language, and remaining true to her remarkable wit.

My first attempt (under the pseudonym of Julia Barrett) was Presumption: An Entertainment, a sequel to Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE * (which I undertook with the assistance of Gabrielle Donnelly, an English novelist).

I pursued my fiction altogether by myself subsequently, though given the success of PRESUMPTION kept the pseudonym of JULIA BARRETT (this, at the demand of my publisher). I have done so with each book ever since.

I next turned to Austen's SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, a work entitled The Third Sister.**

The third was entitled Jane Austen's Charlotte: Her Fragment of a Last Novel.*** It takes the unfinished manuscript abandoned by the author at her death (a mere seventy-odd sheets) and brings it to its conclusion. This novel was to answer the recurring fictional question left unanswered in her lifetime, one that has plagued scholars over generations: Where might she have gone next?

And currently, I have completed a new work which is to be entitled, MARY CRAWFORD: REVISITING AT MANSFIELD PARK and which awaits publication.


* This work was called by THE LONDON TELEGRAPH "the next best thing to discovering a hitherto lost novel by Jane Austen "and THE NEW YORK TIMES wrote of it "energetically and often delightfully handled, evoking the spirit of PRIDE & PREJUDICE" while BRITISH HERITAGE added, "a glittering gem. The title gives fair warning of (Barrett's) approach: respect and common sense with a strong dose of humor."

** Of this new book, THE NEW YORK TIMES said, "...a good story, tight writing and a heroine with brains and charm. BRITISH HERITAGE MAGAZINE declared, "Both Barrett and Austen excel at what should be the primary goal of novelists, yet one that so few authors seem to be able to achieve: capturing our imaginations, holding us spellbound, and, even after the story's resolution, leaving us wanting to know more."

*** Of that work, THE WASHINGTON POST said, "Barrett's vision is sound and she brings this very entertaining book to a proper Austen-like conclusion, in which foolishness is chastened, strength of character rewarded and society...hums in equilibrium once more." The LIBRARY JOURNAL tells us too that, "Barrett knows the style and themes of her predecessor thoroughly...it is difficult to know when Austen leaves off and Barrett begins.."

Articles written for the California Literary Review:

• The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano
  Posted on 17 Mar 2010 in Fiction Reviews, Italy, Mathematics
  

  A startling achievement in a first novel, the work seems to have already touched a chord since it has taken Italy and Europe by storm and sold copies in the millions. It was undertaken by a young Italian physicist at age 27, who tells a haunting story. Better yet, he’s a natural, adept with characterization, knowing how to captivate and hold his readers.

• Churchill by Paul Johnson
  Posted on 01 Dec 2009 in Biography, Great Britain, History, Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  And Johnson reminds us of the memorable words he spoke after France capitulated: “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’” Here the biographer also observes, “So the first true victory Britain won in the war was the victory of oratory and symbolism. Churchill was responsible for both.”

• The Bolter by Frances Osborne
  Posted on 27 Jul 2009 in Biography, Great Britain, Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  She introduces a woman who may have upset those around her by her promiscuity, even nymphomania, drug use; but also gives us access to a fearless beauty with gifts of intelligence, wit, and extraordinary powers to attract the opposite sex. Then too, she reveals that her antics as combined with her endowments were nevertheless insufficient in her hunt for love and lasting affection.

• Manhattan: School for Scriveners
  Posted on 08 Jul 2009 in Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  For me, it was the people themselves, their intellectual inclinations, their sophisticated speech, their crisp wit in delivery which touched every aspect of my days and later still, my evenings as well. They themselves attracted, fascinated even more than daily procedures of the research itself. I had hardly met an assembly of such varied sorts in my Bronx world before. Among them were not just New Yorkers but some who’d come from other sections of our vast country. Several already lived Bohemian lives in trendy Greenwich Village. They knew a city that I had had no real hint of, had not yet encountered.

• All Our Worldly Goods by Irene Nemirovsky
  Posted on 18 Jan 2009 in Fiction Reviews, France
  

  How might we doubt that any long dead, wholly forgotten writer, who has re-emerged and within a few short years risen to a second round of best-sellerdom with three newly-discovered novels is a truly remarkable craftsman? Irene Nemirovsky first came to our attention in 2004, sixty years after her demise at the hands of the Nazis in Auschwitz, when a novel of hers was found “buried” within her journal entries.

• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
  Posted on 02 Sep 2008 in Fiction Reviews, Great Britain, Historical Fiction
  

  Such a pity Mary Ann Shaffer is not around to enjoy her celebrity! Shaffer died in February of this year and thus missed her own miracle—best-sellerdom for a first book written by an already “mature” librarian, former bookseller, and unpublished, aspiring writer. The good news, however, is that her opus is engaging, ingenious and ahead of the publishing game.

• The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia by Tim Tsouliadis
  Posted on 23 Jul 2008 in History, Non-Fiction Reviews, Russia
  

  Readers of faint heart beware when embarking upon this superb work of history. So many stories of suffering are here collected, so utterly specific in their brutal details, a strong stomach will be required. Yet, it is worth the pain since one cannot emerge doubting: the epoch is surely one of history’s most vicious; and its revelation of the Twentieth Century’s brutality is dumbfounding.

• The Man Who Made Lists by Joshua Kendall
  Posted on 11 Mar 2008 in Biography, Great Britain, Linguistics, Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  By the end of that lecture, Roget had concluded that one of the causes of “the slow progress of human knowledge” was “the imperfections of language, both as an instrument of thought and a medium of communication.” It was on that June morning that Dugald Stewart implanted in his disciple a mission which was to occupy him for the rest of his life.

• Murdering Miss Austen
  Posted on 06 Dec 2007 in Fiction Reviews, Literary Themes, Writers
  

  Jane Austen, whose sharp tongue barely left her cheek during her short lifetime, and, whose caustic satire survived the intervening centuries of industrialization, through revolution and war, as well as the whirligig of literary fashions (whose onslaught took down others as great) may finally be deflated or drowned in the crazy waves of idiot’s delights!

• Fire in the Blood by Irène Némirovsky
  Posted on 15 Oct 2007 in Fiction Reviews, France
  

  Silvio’s tale proceeds to unravel the neighborhood secrets, as he uncovers them with a skill that only an exquisite sensibility like Némirovsky’s commands, revealing shockers — illicit passion, intense jealousy, illegitimate offspring, and … murder! Such untold events have remained long hidden, if gossiped over by villagers, vicious events these country people chose never to acknowledge.