Magpies (Carnegie Mellon Short Fiction Series)
"Barrett portrays adult lives with minimal flourishes and a powerful command of setting. Florida is electric with the tension of 'all that can happen' —hurricanes, sinkholes, and a boom-and-bust history. It becomes as eerie as it is richly imagined, whether stories take place in an Art Deco building or a gas station. One of the year's finer university press offerings, the collection is especially noteworthy for 'The Noir Boudoir,' an atmospheric tale of unsettling realizations and the ways past events shadow the present."—Publishers Weekly