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WORK TITLE: The Barrowfields
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Lewis, Phillip E.
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.philliplewisauthor.com/
CITY: Charlotte
STATE: NC
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2016054057
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2016054057
HEADING: Lewis, Phillip (Phillip E.)
000 00965cz a2200157n 450
001 10272985
005 20161114091051.0
008 160930n| azannaabn |n aaa
010 __ |a n 2016054057
040 __ |a DLC |b eng |e rda |c DLC
053 _0 |a PS3612.E976
100 1_ |a Lewis, Phillip |q (Phillip E.)
670 __ |a The Barrowfields, 2017: |b CIP t.p. (Phillip Lewis)
670 __ |a Amazon.com online search 2016-09-30: |b (The Barrowfields (to be published in April 2017) Phillip Lewis is a lawyer in Charlotte, North Carolina)
670 __ |a Blekko online search 2016-10-03: |b (LinkedIn website — Phillip Lewis : Lawyer, Litigation & Real Estate, Horack, Talley, Pharr & Lowndes, P.A. 2004 — Present (12 years); Campbell University Juris Doctor (J.D.) 1998 –2001; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill B.A., Philosophy 1993)
670 __ |a Online search http://radaris.com/%7EPhillip-Lewis/280269586: |b (Phillip E. Lewis; Charlotte, N.C., lawyer; Office: Horack, Talley, Pharr & Lowndes)
PERSONAL
Born in NC.
EDUCATION:University of North Carolina, B.A., 1993; Campbell University, J.D., 1998.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author and lawyer. Horack, Talley, Pharr & Lowndes, P.A., lawyer, 2004—.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Phillip Lewis hails originally from the mountains of North Carolina. He is a lawyer with a firm in Charlotte, North Carolina, but has many other interests as well, including music, rare books, and language study. He also writes literary fiction.
The Barrowfields is Lewis’s literary debut. The titular “barrowfields” refers to a grandiose mountain manor, nestled in the heart of the Appalachians and formally dubbed “Old Buckram.” It is also a physical representation of the Aster family and their tumultuous issues. Henry, the protagonist, spends his youth living in the house, yet his intelligence and ambition leaves him desiring more than what the house’s walls and his family can provide. He leaves as a young man to attend university, and it is there that he begins to build his life and start a family of his own. A twist of fate forces him back to the home to care for his ailing mother. He brings along his wife, and it is at the manor that they welcome their son, Henry Jr. Henry Sr. devotes himself entirely to his career and personal goals, working on his novel and assisting clients at his law firm. However, his choice of lifestyle comes to affect his family over time.
Despite his father’s relative distance from his life, Henry Jr. comes to idolize him and pursues the same path as his father during his own adult life. In the process, Henry Jr. divorces himself from his family to focus on himself and his goals, in spite of the constant requests for help sent from his mother, who still remains in the area he left behind. The only information he receives is that something is seriously wrong with his younger sister. At the same time, Henry Jr. finds himself involved with a woman who has her own troubles regarding her family. Finding a sense of relatability with his newfound flame, Henry Jr. begins to reconsider his decision to cut off his family. Just like his father, Henry Jr. is pulled back to his family’s house and forced to confront many of the demons that were hidden from him. In doing so, he discovers just how much has changed in the years he has been away. His mother and father’s relationship has entirely dissolved. As a result, the two live separately from one another, his sister having chosen to stay with their mother. Henry Sr. has vanished from the estate, with no visible clues as to where he could have gone. It is up to Henry Jr. to uncover the truth of his father’s vanishing, all while dealing with the various demons lurking within his family background, as well as his individual issues. In the process, he is able to develop his budding romance with Story, the woman he has come to love and to whom he has been able to relate so well, since both are dealing with stressful family situations. The story winds back and forth through time as Henry Jr. recounts memories from his youth.
Library Journal reviewer Susanne Wells called The Barrowfields “wide in scope.” In an issue of Booklist, Jonathan Fullmer expressed that the book is an “evocative debut about disenchantment and identity.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented: “Lewis evokes his settings beautifully, and his prose is bracingly erudite,” adding that “this debut has the ability to fully immerse its readers.” A contributor to Publishers Weekly remarked: “The characters, including young Henry’s sister, Threnody, and his eventual love interest, Story, are well-drawn, and Lewis is a master of creating a sense of place.” Joan Silber, a writer on the New York Times Online, stated: “The prose has the beautiful attention to detail that embeds us in place.” She also called the book “a work of abundant talent.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 1, 2017, Jonathan Fullmer, review of The Barrowfields, p. 36.
Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2016, review of The Barrowfields.
Library Journal, March 1, 2017, Susanne Wells, review of The Barrowfields, p. 77.
Publishers Weekly, January 30, 2017, review of The Barrowfields, p. 170.
ONLINE
Horack Talley Website, http://www.horacktalley.com/ (November 9, 2017), author profile.
New York Times Online, https://www.nytimes.com/ (March 24, 2017), Joan Silber, review of The Barrowfields.
Phillip Lewis Website, http://www.philliplewisauthor.com (November 9, 2017), author profile.
THE BARROWFIELDS THE NOVEL REVIEWS ARTICLES UK EDITION ABOUT
PHILLIP LEWIS
Phillip Lewis was born and raised in the mountains of North Carolina. He now lives in Charlotte.
THE BARROWFIELDS is his first novel.
Agent: Chris Clemans, The Clegg Agency.
Media inquiries: Rebecca Welbourn; rwelbourn @ penguinrandomhouse.com (US).
Rebecca Watson; rebeccaw @ fmcm.co.uk (UK).
Twitter: @ekhornbeck
Instagram: philliplewisbooks
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Print Marked Items
Lewis, Phillip. The Barrowfields
Susanne Wells
Library Journal.
142.4 (Mar. 1, 2017): p77.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Lewis, Phillip. The Barrowfields. Hogarth: Crown. Apr. 2017.368p. ISBN 9780451495648. $26; ebk. ISBN
9780451495662. F
This debut novel is built around a house, an old, gothic, iron-and-glass structure far up in the Appalachian Mountains.
The house seems to have a dreary past that haunts its new residents, the family of Henry Aster.
His father, an aspiring author, grew up in these same hardscrabble mountains but unlike everyone else always had a
book in hand. After college and marriage, he returns to the mysterious mansion on the hill, and his son Henry becomes
the narrator of the story. After long struggles, fathers and sons and families come apart, and it takes many years and a
few crises until any sort of reconciliation can begin. The house and the small town are well rendered in this story, but
slight inconsistencies abound. For example, in the late 1950s, father meets mother, who works in an academic library;
she's wearing bright green capri pants on the job. Highly unlikely given the time and place; small discrepancies such as
this mount and detract from the novel's credibility. VERDICT The devil is in the details in Lewis's first novel, which is
wide in scope yet somewhat uneven in pacing and in the particulars.--Susanne Wells, Indianapolis P.L.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Wells, Susanne. "Lewis, Phillip. The Barrowfields." Library Journal, 1 Mar. 2017, p. 77. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA483702092&it=r&asid=96d7e413d5e686fe3b1e2f5994f07ec2.
Accessed 5 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A483702092
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The Barrowfields
Jonathan Fullmer
Booklist.
113.13 (Mar. 1, 2017): p36.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
The Barrowfields.
By Phillip Lewis.
Mar. 2017. 368p. Hogarth, $26 (9780451495648).
In his evocative debut about disenchantment and identity, Lewis captures the longing of a southerner separated from
his home, his family, and his ambition. As soon as he can, Henry Aster leaves Old Buckram, his hometown of 400
inhabitants tucked away in the North Carolina hills, for Baltimore, where he develops a passion for literature, liquor,
and writing. When his mother, Maddy, falls ill, he reluctantly returns to Old Buckram with his pregnant wife,
practicing law during the day and furiously writing at night. Their son, also named Henry, grows to admire his father's
literary ambitions, even if his bookishness and melancholia perplex him. Following a string of traumatic events,
including an attempted book burning, Henry the elder disappears, leaving the younger Henry longing to leave Old
Buckram, too. When he does, he faces an indifferent world that's as mystifying as his father. Like fellow North
Carolinian Thomas Wolfe, Lewis tackles the conflicting choice between accepting one's roots and rejecting the past,
and he does so with grace, wit, and an observant eye.--Jonathan Fullmer
YA: Young Henry's disillusionment and quiet observations might resonate with YAs, especially those who are
introspective or fascinated by the unexpected. JF.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Fullmer, Jonathan. "The Barrowfields." Booklist, 1 Mar. 2017, p. 36. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA488689474&it=r&asid=000e103a5dc4e341f08fdc6a46889b0c.
Accessed 5 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A488689474
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The Barrowfields
Publishers Weekly.
264.5 (Jan. 30, 2017): p170.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Barrowfields
Phillip Lewis. Random/Hogarth, $26 (368p)
ISBN 978-0-451-49564-8
In this charming, absorbing, and assured debut novel, a young man tries to make sense of his father's life and the
passions that unite them--namely, a devotion to literature and a rueful nostalgia for their Appalachian homeland. In the
novel's sweeping opening, the narrator, Henry Aster, describes how his father, also named Henry, briefly escaped his
hometown of Old Buckram, N.C., to attend college and pursue soaring literary ambitions, convinced that "inside him
was something magnificent." After marrying and gaining a law degree, though, the elder Henry learned that his mother
is ill, and he returned to Old Buckram, where, following a bout of professional success, he bought a sinister-looking
hilltop mansion known as "the vulture house." There, he raised his family and toiled away endlessly on a mysterious,
Casaubon-esque work of literature. Younger Henry relates all this years later, sometime in the '90s, after having
followed a very similar trajectory: he too, after gaining a law degree, has found himself back in Old Buckram. But his
father is gone, the rest of his family is in shambles, and his girlfriend-the aptly if cutely named Story--has her own
family problems to sort out. Lewis evokes his settings beautifully, and his prose is bracingly erudite. This debut has the
ability to fully immerse its readers. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Barrowfields." Publishers Weekly, 30 Jan. 2017, p. 170. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480195140&it=r&asid=68929a95f0f950d26924b9c9a058d818.
Accessed 5 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A480195140
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Lewis, Phillip: THE BARROWFIELDS
Kirkus Reviews.
(Dec. 15, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Lewis, Phillip THE BARROWFIELDS Hogarth/Crown (Adult Fiction) $26.00 3, 7 ISBN: 978-0-451-49564-8
Amid family tragedy, a young man flees the peculiar home of his youth only to return years later. Thomas Wolfe may
have warned that "you can't go home again," but the Asters of Old Buckram, North Carolina, apparently didn't get the
message. The narrator's father, Henry, is a strange fit for this "achromatic town high in the belly of the Appalachian
Mountains." A boozy and bookish writer, he's returned to his hometown to continue crafting his magnum opus and
raise his family in a sprawling, eerie estate built into the side of a mountain. His son, also Henry, tells his dad's story
and, mostly, his own: from his father's permanent abandonment of the family to his own abandonment of Old Buckram
for college and law school to his eventual return. The writing is pleasant and often funny, and Henry's memories of his
youth are rich and complex (the town preacher's attempted public burning of a copy of As I Lay Dying, thwarted by
Henry the elder, is particularly memorable). The characters, including young Henry's sister, Threnody, and his eventual
love interest, Story, are well-drawn, and Lewis is a master of creating a sense of place (the title refers to a mysterious
plot of land in Old Buckram where "nothing of natural origin will grow except a creeping gray moss"). Ultimately,
though, the story is too unfocused to hold readers' attention. Each of Henry's reminiscences, on its own, is interesting,
but there are too many anecdotes for the narrative to pick up steam. Late-in-the-game secondary plotlines and twists
only further dilute an otherwise powerful story. Promising but unfocused, this finely wrought debut novel would've
benefited from more ruthless editing.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Lewis, Phillip: THE BARROWFIELDS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Dec. 2016. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA473652413&it=r&asid=57a1cbb5192da3bcc4f5736e835cec4e.
Accessed 5 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A473652413
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BOOK REVIEW | FICTION
Stepping Out of the Shadow of a Boozy, Bookish Dad
By JOAN SILBERMARCH 24, 2017
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THE BARROWFIELDS
By Phillip Lewis
349 pp. Hogarth. $26.
It’s useful in fiction when people don’t get over things. In Phillip Lewis’s debut novel, “The Barrowfields,” the central figure, Henry Aster, has a troubled family history, and even when he forgets he doesn’t forget.
The family’s roots are in a small town in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, “where the few paltry shops — an aging hardware store, a feed store, a cobbler, a discount clothier, a cafe and a headstone maker — scarcely see enough business for a living and close early in the dark days of winter before the snow falls.” A resident greeted on the street says: “What do I know? Hell, I don’t even suspect anything.” It’s a great place except when it isn’t. The town library is proud of banning Faulkner.
Henry is raised in an architect’s folly of a house, made of glass and iron, shadowed in rock — “At night, it brooded in darkness like an ember-eyed bird of prey” — whose vast bookshelves are presided over by his father, a hard-drinking lost genius of a writer. The father’s disappearance, when Henry is a teenager, is the spectral baggage Henry keeps thinking he’s not carrying.
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When Henry takes off for college, he vows to his beloved little sister that he will call every day, come home often, bring her to Connecticut to visit, but within months he has broken ties with his family utterly. “The longer I stayed away, the harder it was to return.” Years go by, with unpaid visits and unanswered phone calls. His mother tries to alert him to his sister’s teenage fragility: “Be quiet for a minute and listen to what I’m saying. . . . She’s not O.K.”
The reader is like the audience at a melodrama — ready to shout across the fourth wall at the actor: “Go home!”
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In the meantime, Henry is renting shabby apartments, going to law school, drinking beer with friends, and finally meeting a smart woman he falls for. The novel manages to keep all of this lively, while we bite our knuckles about his poor sister. (For diversion, there’s a terrific portrait of a gigantic, goofy dog, a creature of majestic eagerness and clumsiness.) The woman he falls in love with has her own family issues — a complicated adoption — and this helps spur Henry at last to return to the haunted house of his youth. His mother and sister have in fact moved out by now, and the mother has another partner. In a crucial phone call to the new home, Henry is begrudgingly but miraculously forgiven by his sister. On the book’s last pages we hear the secret of his father’s fate — it’s not surprising, but it settles the book into a gathered shape.
“The Barrowfields,” with its almost Victorian title, offers in its own ways the pleasures of older novels, with their coziness and sweep, and their tacit belief that family is destiny. The prose has the beautiful attention to detail that embeds us in place. One of the most impressive scenes has almost nothing to do with the plot — on a moonless night on a deserted ridge, a band of wild horses comes close to trampling Henry and his girlfriend. With escalating suspense and elemental gravity, the scene also echoes the long-ago loss of Henry’s baby sister under a horse’s “careless misstep.”
At the core of this story is an alcoholic father stuck on notions of his own genius — a figure left over from the last century. My one quibble with the book was that I was waiting for Lewis to suggest a critique of this myth. Assumptions have changed. That said, “The Barrowfields” is a work of abundant talent.
Joan Silber’s most recent book of fiction, “Improvement,” will be published this fall.
A version of this review appears in print on March 26, 2017, on Page BR18 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Spectral Baggage. Today's Paper|Subscribe
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