A Taxonomy of Barnacles: A Novel - Softcover

Niederhoffer, Galt

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312426518 ISBN 13: 9780312426514

Publisher: Picador, 2006

Synopsis

Set in the baronial Upper East Side apartment of Barry Barnacle, among giant aquariums, a sprawling shell collection, and a jungle room with a three-toed sloth and a macaque, this is the story of the six Barnacle daughters, aged ten to twenty-nine. As the story begins, one daughter has returned home secretly pregnant, and she and her sister are sneaking out at night to meet the Finch twins in the apartment downstairs, while Barry, the patriarch, has devised a challenge for his daughters: whoever can secure the future of the Barnacle line within the week will inherit his whole fortune.

A love story, a family chronicle, and a portrait of a city, A Taxonomy of Barnacles is "a confident and witty debut that brings to mind an eccentric combination of The Virgin Suicides and Little Women" (Kirkus Reviews).

About this title

About the Author

Galt Niederhoffer started her own film production company in her early twenties and has produced three Sundance Award-winning movies. She lives in New York City.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Charles Darwin studied barnacles before he used the Galapagos finch to illustrate his theory of evolution, a fact first-time novelist Niederhoffer parlays into a delightfully clever and romantic screwball comedy. Her Barnacles are an eccentric and well-off Manhattan family ensconced in an enormous apartment facing Central Park and bursting with natural--history collections. It's a hectic household, what with Barry, the droll and manipulative patriarch; his loopy ex-wife, Bella, who lives upstairs with Latrell, her adopted African American son; Bunny, Barry's current wife; and six headstrong daughters, all with names beginning with B. The Finches live next door, and romantic confusion ensues between the at-loose-ends twentysomething identical Finch twins, Billy and Blaine, and the two oldest Barnacle sisters, Bridget and Bell, who are similarly adrift, antics that elicit much ire from the quirky younger Barnacles. Then, as if life in his daffy kingdom wasn't contentious enough, Barry initiates a contest that throws his competitive if dysfunctional daughters into a frenzy. A filmmaker before she became a novelist, Niederhoffer pays sparkling homage to fairy tales, King Lear, Austen, and Nora Ephron in this charming and sly spoofing of the concept of the survival of the fittest, and the nature-versus-nurture debate. Donna Seaman
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About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0312426518
• ISBN 13: 9780312426514
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384