Family & Friendship - Fiction, Literary Styles & Movements - Fiction, Business, Work, & Money - Fiction

Taxonomy of Barnacles

Name: Taxonomy of Barnacles
Author: Galt Niederhoffer
ISBN: 9780312426514

by Galt Niederhoffer

Write a review

Overview

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).

Synopsis

Publishers Weekly

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.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Galt Niederhoffer

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.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

A Taxonomy of Barnacles, Galt Niederhoffer’s fine debut novel, is both painfully realistic and gut-wrenchingly funny. The story of the six Barnacle sisters -- Bell, Benita, Beryl, Belinda, Bridget, and Beth -- as they vie for their father’s fortune may seem like a subject more suitable for Jane Austen and Charles Dickens than for a contemporary writer. But Niderhoffer's cinematic imagination is thoroughly up-to-date, and she also manages to evoke everything from Woody Allen’s eternal autumns to Orson Welles’s screen adaptation of The Magnificent Ambersons. Literary taxonomists will classify this as a delicious modern comedy of manners.

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

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 Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

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.