Barrow

By John Deakins

The harmless Old Man, a street teacher to slum children, struggles to maintain his humanity. He is more than he seems. His age is in the thousands; his magical power is the highest. Behind his... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451450043
• ISBN13: 9780451450043
• Release Date: April 1990
• Publisher: Roc
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Beautiful Connections

I cannot believe more people haven't read and loved this book. True, it's incredibly (and devastatingly) obscure - I found it years ago in a 'free' bin at my library, but the pages are priceless. I liken the book to the recent film Crash - if not in tone or heaviness, in the ways that the many different storylines interact. This book is made of not one main story, but many short stories, all with wonderful characters, that interact and connect in subtle, unexpected, and sometimes downright bizarre ways. I don't want to reveal too much, but this book has it all - adventure, fantasy, and a surprisingly quick, bright sense of humor. Deakins' sense of timing for funniness is impeccable - I laughed out loud many times through it. The book is seventeen years old, and is as fresh and sharp as if it were written yesterday - some books may age gracefully and become classics; this one hasn't aged a day. The many threads of story, with their own characters and events, weave together to make a gorgeous tapestry of a story - it's like watching a busy city from above (as the Prince does at one point), watching how people bump into each other, never aware of the effects they have on others. I found this book when I was under ten years old, really too young to appreciate it. Now, eight years later, I do understand it - or at least, more, and I've read and re-read it many times. It only gets better with every reading; I pick up nuances and little quirks I missed the time before - truly, every reading is like new. I cannot say how much I love this book, nor how very highly I recommend it. It may be difficult to find it, but you can - I did, after losing my treasured, underlined and hi-lited copy (I've never been happier to find a replacement book), and I promise it will be worth it.