Joan Barfoot’s Wikipedia page states that her work has been compared with Anne Tyler’s, Margaret Drabble’s, Fay Weldon’s, Carol Shields’ and Margaret Atwood’s none of these comparisons surprise me as all of these authors figure on my list of favourites as well (although Fay Weldon to a lesser extent, but I did particularly enjoy her memoir, Auto da Fay, and I do understand the root of the comparison).īut I might also add Muriel Spark, thinking of her sharp eye and her deliberate choice of words (even more immediately apparent in Joan Barfoot’s Luck and Exit Lines). You wouldn’t go wrong to start with one of her more recently published novels, but her earlier works are certainly worth the time. Abra was her first novel, so what better place to start, particularly as my review here might be your introduction to this astute and talented fiction writer. So, when I started to think of women novelists to read for the Women Unbound Reading Challenge, I immediately thought of her books and particularly wanted to read or re-read earlier works. The book of hers that I did re-read was Critical Injuries (2001), which was longlisted for the Booker Prize and the re-read was so rewarding that, since, I’ve wanted to revisit both Luck (2005) and Exit Lines (2009) I read each of them in a couple of days because I was so caught up in the stories (by which I mean, mostly, in the characters, for they are the heart of Joan Barfoot’s novels for me) and I knew that I was breezing past choice lines and observations that would resonate even more strongly if I’d only slow down to take another pass, but I was compelled to read on without hesitation. I haven’t re-read it, but I still remember the experience of wanting to read more, that overpowering sense of recognition. It was a story about the world I inhabited. What I do remember clearly about Family News is that I was struck by how much of the novel felt recognizable to me, familiar and immediate.

The first Joan Barfoot novel that I read was Family News (1989), dating to a time when I only irregularly noted the books that I read in a coilbound exercise book, so I know that I sought out several of her books after that, but I don’t know which was the second.

Gaining ground joan barfoot