Barbara by Joni Murphy | The Miramichi Reader

One of the privileges of getting to review for The Miramichi Reader is the opportunity to read some really very fascinating books. Obviously, since I’m pointing this out, Barbara by Joni Murphy is one of them. And I’m not entirely sure I liked Barbara – to be sure, it was a riveting reading experience. Did I enjoy it? Hmmm. I didn’t not enjoy it. I’ll return to the first word I used to describe books in this review: fascinating. Barbara is fascinating. It didn’t really matter whether I enjoyed the story or not, whether I liked the experience of reading it or not, because Murphy has created such a compelling character that you need to keep reading.

Barbara is fascinating. It didn’t really matter whether I enjoyed the story or not, whether I liked the experience of reading it or not, because Murphy has created such a compelling character that you need to keep reading.

The titular character is an aging actor having an affair with a co-star while filming a Western in an isolated area. Being with her co-star and fretting about her age and her career, Barbara sinks into telling stories about the different parts of her life, an analysis of the things that built her, the loss of her mother when she was thirteen, and the desire to be an actress and create art that consumed and drove her. This is not a joyful story about making it in Hollywood or on the stage – Barbara tells her story bleakly and plainly, and the highlight for me was the way she was always performing.

I don’t think there’s anything groundbreaking in Barbara as a character; her arc will be familiar to anyone who’s read about actors from the mid-twentieth century, both real and fictional. What is fascinating about Barbara is Murphy’s willingness to have her probe every part of her life to take her own measure; the strange and haunting way the story is framed, weaving in and out of different eras of her life; and the pictures that Murphy includes as a marker for each section of Barbara’s story, a break where she changes tack or direction. This was a powerful narrative choice in the book, and it works well.

A lot of the novels in the same kind of line as Barbara often have an element of fun or froth to them, even with the sort of standard storylines about an exploited young woman who’s trying to make it big. Barbara is a tougher read, because Barbara herself doesn’t focus on the glitz, and also because her life is tragic – with a twist. Her mother died when she was young, yes, and there was generational trauma, but interestingly, her father worked on the Manhattan Project, and so there’s another shadow in her life: the work her father did as a scientist, and how it coloured their lives.

This is a rich text for history buffs, for those interested in trauma and excavating it, for those who repeatedly return to the post-WWII era to examine the reverberations that echo today, and for those who enjoy a gritty look at showbiz. Know that it is dark, but you’ll be sucked right in.

JONI MURPHY was born in New Mexico lives in New York. Her debut novel, Double Teenage, was named one of The Globe and Mail‘s 100 Best Books of 2016. Her second novel, Talking Animals, was published in 2020.

Publisher: Book*hug Press (March 25, 2025)
Paperback 5″ x 8″ | 248pp
ISBN: 9781771669252

Alison Manley

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Alison Manley has ricocheted between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for most of her life. Now in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she is the Cataloguing and Metadata Librarian at Saint Mary's University. Her past life includes a long stint as a hospital librarian on the banks of the mighty Miramichi River. She has an honours BA in political science and English from St. Francis Xavier University, and a Master of Library and Information Studies from Dalhousie University. While she's adamant that her love of reading has nothing to do with her work, her ability to consume large amounts of information very quickly sure is helpful. She is often identified by her very red lipstick, and lives with her partner Brett and cat, Toasted Marshmallow.