Blues is thus a panorama of contrasts, in which the realities and possibilities of Texas are captured both intimately and ultimately, their particularity resonating far beyond the page. The crisis of the working man, resourceful yet obsolete, is captured repeatedly in its very essence in these stories, in forms outre and visceral. Men long and men suffer. But Barrett, very cannily, evokes the plight of women too, in strikingly similar terms. So it is women who face the scourge of the world in some of these tales.
Women yearn and suffer also.
They are, just possibly, a conduit to better things. Perpetuity Blues , then, is a fine and significant collection, consistent, acute, deeply involving. Inventive, evocative, and psychologically acute, it is a book of character and with character. It deserves a wide success. Review by Nick Gevers .