Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | Fic Niederhoffer, G. 2006 | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
The Barnacle sisters--Bell, Bridget, Benita, Beryl, Belinda and Beth--have been raised by their eccentric, self-made father in a fabulous, gigantic Fifth Avenue apartment that, encrusted with Barry Barnacle's scientific collections, feels like a little piece of the Museum of Natural History transplanted to the other side of Central Park. Now that most of the sisters have come of age, Barry Barnacle proposes a contest, a test of wits and wills that should at long last settle what is to Barry the most essential of all questions: nature, or nurture? Whichever of his daughters can most spectacularly carry on his name will inherit his fortune; the others are out cold.
It's a proposition to set a Jane Austen heroine on her ear, but the Barnacle girls are up to the challenge. Throw the girls' mother Bella and their childhood crushes--the Finch twins next door--into the mix and the stage is set for a completely inventive and utterly fresh social comedy that is as beautifully written as it is unique.
Author Notes
Galt Niederhoffer started her own film production company in her early twenties, and has produced three award-winning Sundance movies. She lives in New York City.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In Niederhoffer's arch, alliterative debut, Bell, Bridget, Beth, Belinda, Beryl and Benita Barnacle, ranging in age from 10 to 29, plunge headlong into the competition their father, Barry Barnacle (n? Baranski), dictates at the family's annual Passover seder on the Upper East Side. "Whoever can figure out a way to immortalize the Barnacle name will be named the sole beneficiary of my estate," declares the patriarch, who made his fortune as New York's "Pantyhose Prince," formed a worldview according to social Darwinism, but produced no male heirs. Twenty-nine-year-old Bell may lock down the contest by announcing her pregnancy. But 10-year-old Benita, daddy's little girl, sets out to immortalize her family name through infamy, not progeny. Rebellious 16-year-old Belinda, who shares "her sisters' wildness but none of their savvy," pursues a questionable liaison with a pierced, acne-prone suitor, while Beryl, an artistic 13-year-old, apparently doesn't deign to compete. The real game, though, is between Bell and 26-year-old Bridget (the prettiest and most extroverted sister) who angle for the affections of their handsome neighbors, identical twins Billy and Blaine Finch. This zany 1930s-style romantic comedy, titled after Darwin's monograph on the arthropods he studied before finches, makes for a lighthearted literary lark. Agent, Joy Harris. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Six gifted sisters compete for their Darwin-obsessed father's fortune--and love--in this Manhattan comedy of manners. Blessed with beauty, intelligence and poise, the Barnacle daughters--Bell, Bridget, Beth, Belinda, Beryl, Benita--are, to their father Barry, a triumph of nature over nurture. What they are not, however, is a male heir. With that in mind, the Brooklyn-born "Pantyhose Prince" chooses the family's annual Passover Seder to announce that whichever one of his girls can find a way to "immortalize the Barnacle name" within one week will be the sole beneficiary of his self-made fortune. An avid amateur scientist, Barry thinks he is encouraging a healthy competition among his daughters, but his intentions backfire as the sisters, ranging in age from 10 to 29, scheme against each other in an upper-class survival of the fittest. Will the father choose glamorous Bridget, scientific prodigy Beth or, perhaps, Machiavellian tween Benita? Niederhoffer ably invokes the hormonal chaos of young women, but like the girls themselves, her prose sometimes seems a bit too enamored of its own cleverness. The story exhibits the most heart when following pregnant, unwed Bell. Newly returned to the fold, she is the eldest and most heavily burdened of the sisters. The story of her struggle to make peace with her deeply flawed but loving parents delivers the most satisfying emotional return. A confident and witty debut that brings to mind an eccentric combination of The Virgin Suicides and Little Women. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist 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 Copyright 2005 Booklist
Library Journal Review
This first novel by an independent film producer (The Baxter) is the story of the quirky Barnacle family-six sisters and their off-the-wall parents-who reside in a Manhattan apartment with a view of Central Park. Demanding and evolution-obsessed father Barry issues a challenge to daughters Bell, Bridget, Benita, Beryl, Belinda, and Beth Barnacle, ages 29 to ten: whoever can immortalize the Barnacle name will inherit his fortune. The sisters use various tactics of evolution to accomplish this goal. Will nature or nurture prevail? The other major characters involved in this Darwinian exercise are neighboring twins Billy and Blaine Finch. Each has long been in love with a Barnacle sister (Bell and Bridget, respectively), and now these relationships are undergoing a final test. The entire novel follows the concept of evolution to its end, just as Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer is infused with the concept of biology. Niederhoffer's writing is very detailed and can get a bit bogged down, and with multiple sisters and a set of identical twins as the romantic leads, the whole jumble is confusing. However, the story is interesting and eccentric, and it's quite en vogue with its Manhattan setting. Recommended for public libraries.-Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.