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WORK TITLE: The Garden of Blue Roses
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://michaelbarsa.com/
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COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Male.
EDUCATION:Stanford University, B.A., M.A., 1992, J.D., 1997.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and educator. Law Clerk for Hon Cynthia Holcomb Hall, U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, 1997-98; Munger, Tolles & Olson, Los Angeles, CA, associate, 1999-2008; Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Chicago, IL, professor of practice and codirector of the Environmental Law Concentration. Also worked as a grant writer and an English teacher.
WRITINGS
Contributor to law reviews, including the Fordham Environmental Law Review. Contributor to periodicals, including the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times; contributor of short fiction to Sequoia.
SIDELIGHTS
A former environmental lawyer and English teacher, Michael Barsa grew up in a New Jersey household where only German was spoken. As a result, Barsa only started to speak German when he began his schooling. Barsa, who has lived on three continents, is a law professor who has written about environmental law and policy. He also writes fiction and has been influenced “by authors who have a strong and distinctive voice, and authors who are not afraid of darker material,” as he noted in an interview for the Big Thrill website. Barsa went on to name Henry Patricial Highsmith, Henry James, Shirley Jackson, and Edgar Allen Poe as influences and “masters of their own styles.”
In his debut novel, The Garden of Blue Roses, Barsa tells the story of Milo Crane, the son of a critically acclaimed horror writer. The death of Milo’s father appears to be liberating to Milo until someone appears in his life who seemsto have all the traits of one of his father’s most evil character. The Garden of Blue Roses “is written in the tradition of gothic horror–quite self-consciously so,” Barsa remarked in the interview for the Big Thrill website, going on to note that his debut novel addresses the meaning of reading and writing “and how we’re all influenced by the stories we tell and hear.”
John Crane raised Milo and his sister Klara with horror tales by a host of writers, including Bram Stoker, Matthew Lewis, Edgar Allan Poe, and Charles Maturin. As a result, the siblings became fearful very early on in life. “The tendrils of dread … spread into every nook and cranny of their brains, coloring everything they see with sepia tones of gothic gloom, creaking stairs, window rattling angst,” noted Shelf Inflicted website contributor Jeffrey Keeten. As a result, Milo and Klara are often apprehensive, questioning their surroundings and whether or not the supernatural has invaded their lives.
Klara eventually fled home and then got married. The marriage ended in divorce, and Klara reluctantly returned home only to once again experience the oppressiveness of her father’s house. Milo, who narrates the story, feels a sense of relief when his father, along with his mother, is found dead in a car at the bottom of a ravine along. After all, John Crane always spooked Milo and his sister with his nightmarish readings to them and the spectre of him wearing vampire makeup while scribbling in a notebook and walking in the moonlit woods.
Now that his father is dead, Milo spends most of his time building models of Greek warships while trying to rebuild a bond with Klara. Things drastically change, however, when Klara hires Henri to serve as a gardener for the unruly grounds on their father’s estate and to build a specific garden in honor of her father. Before long, Henri, who was a devoted fan of John Crane, seems to be gaining an undue influence over Klara, at least as far as Milo is concerned. Before long, Milo and Henri seem to be doing battle to form the strongest relationship with and influence over Kara. Meanwhile, it turns out that Klara and Henri share a secret.
“People are starting to compare this novel to the works of some of the great psychological horror writers, and they are right in doing so,” wrote Shelf Inflicted website contributor Keeten, adding: “Michael Barsa has written a brilliant novel with so many beautiful layers.” Some reviewers also noted that Milo is an unreliable narrator. “None of the characters are to be trusted, least of all Milo,” wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor who also commented that The Garden of Blue Roses “bewitches even as it creates unease” and called Barsa “a unique voice in contemporary fiction.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2018, review of The Garden of Blue Roses.
ONLINE
Big Thrill, http://www.thebigthrill.org/ (April 30, 2018), “The Garden of Blue Roses by Michael Barsa,” author interview.
Broken Teepee, https://brokenteepee.com (June 13, 2018), review of The Garden of Blue Roses.
Michael Barsa website, http://michaelbarsa.com (July 3, 2018).
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law website, http://www.law.northwestern.edu/ (July 3, 2018), author faculty profile.
Shelf Inflicted, http://www.shelfinflicted.com (January 31, 2018), Jeffrey Keeten, review of The Garden of Blue Roses.
About the Author
Michael Barsa grew up in a German-speaking household in New Jersey and spoke no English until he went to school. So began an epic struggle to master the American “R” and a lifelong fascination with language. He’s lived on three continents and spent many summers in southern Germany and southern Vermont.
He’s worked as an award-winning grant writer, an English teacher, and an environmental lawyer. He now teaches environmental and natural resources law. His scholarly articles have appeared in several major law reviews, and his writing on environmental policy has appeared in The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times. His short fiction has appeared in Sequoia.
The Garden of Blue Roses is his first novel.
The Garden of Blue Roses by Michael Barsa
2 MONTHS AGO by ITW 4 0
A car lies at the bottom of an icy ravine. Slumped over the steering wheel, dead, is the most critically acclaimed horror writer of his time. Was it an accident? His son Milo doesn’t care. For the first time in his life, he’s free. No more nightmarish readings, spooky animal rites, or moonlit visions of his father in the woods with a notebook and vampire make-up.
Or so he thinks.
Milo settles into a quiet routine—constructing model Greek warships and at last building a relationship with his sister Klara, who’s home after a failed marriage and brief career as an English teacher. Then Klara hires a gardener to breathe new life into their overgrown estate. There’s something odd about him—something eerily reminiscent of their father’s most violent villain. Or is Milo imagining things? He’s not sure. That all changes the day the gardener discovers something startling in the woods. Suddenly Milo is fighting for his life, forced to confront the power of fictional identity as he uncovers the shocking truth about his own dysfunctional family—and the supposed accident that claimed his parents’ lives.
The Big Thrill caught up with author Michael Barsa to discuss his debut novel, THE GARDEN OF BLUE ROSES:
How does this book make a contribution to the genre?
This book is written in the tradition of gothic horror–quite self-consciously so. The narrator, Milo Crane, has been steeped in his father’s horror books all his life, and now he wonders whether one of those books has come to life for real. So the book deals with what it means to read, to write, and how we’re all influenced by the stories we tell and hear.
Was there anything new you discovered, or that surprised you, as you wrote this book?
I discovered that every book lays out its own path, and there’s no use fighting it. I never plan what happens next as I write. I allow the characters to take the lead. So the entire book was really a journey of discovery–for me as well as for the reader. I was surprised by every twist and turn.
What authors or books have influenced your career as a writer, and why?
I’ve always been influenced by authors who have a strong and distinctive voice, and authors who are not afraid of darker material. Such authors include Shirley Jackson, Edgar Allan Poe, Patricia Highsmith, and Henry James. They’re all masters of their own styles.
*****
Michael Barsa grew up in a German-speaking household in New Jersey and spoke no English until he went to school. So began an epic struggle to master the American “R” and a lifelong fascination with language. He’s lived on three continents and spent many summers in southern Germany and southern Vermont.
He’s worked as an award-winning grant writer, an English teacher, and an environmental lawyer. He now teaches environmental and natural resources law. His scholarly articles have appeared in several major law reviews, and his writing on environmental policy has appeared in The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times. His short fiction has appeared in Sequoia.
GARDEN OF BLUE ROSES is his first novel.
To learn more about Michael, please visit his website.
Professor of Practice
Co-Director of the Environmental Law Concentration
Barsa, Michael R.
Phone
(312) 503-7983
Email
m-barsa@law.northwestern.edu
Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
Assistant
Juana Haskin
Assistant Phone
(312) 503-0659
Assistant Email
jhaskin@law.northwestern.edu
Biography
Michael Barsa litigated numerous high-profile environmental and natural resources cases before joining the Northwestern faculty. He developed novel legal strategies in cases involving large-scale groundwater contamination from MTBE in gasoline, DDT off the California coast, subsurface trespass of oilfield water, international environmental harms arising from the first Gulf War, and recycling. His scholarly work has explored international environmental claims under the Alien Tort Claims Act, risk perception under environmental warning statutes, the Public Trust Doctrine, and the Deepwater Horizon disaster. In 2012, he was voted the Robert Childres Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence.
Courses
Colloquium: Environmental Law
Environmental Appellate Advocacy Workshop
Environmental Law
International Environmental Law
Natural Resources
Property
Regulatory Strategy & Communication
Selected Publications
Reconceptualizing NEPA to Prevent the Next Preventable Disaster (forthcoming) (with David A. Dana).
Three Obstacles to the Promotion of Corporate Social Responsibility by Means of the Alien Tort Claims Act: The Sosa Court’s Incoherent Conception of the Law of Nations, the “Purposive” Action Requirement for Aiding and Abetting, and the State Action Requirement for Primary Liability in 21 fordham environmental law review 79-121 (2010) (with David Dana).
View additional publications
Education
BA, Stanford University
MA, Stanford University
JD, Stanford University
Prior Appointments
Senior Lecturer, Northwestern University School of Law
1999-2008, Munger, Tolles & Olson
Law Clerk, 1997-1998, Hon. Cynthia Holcomb Hall, U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit
Barsa, Michael: THE GARDEN OF BLUE ROSES
Kirkus Reviews. (Feb. 15, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Barsa, Michael THE GARDEN OF BLUE ROSES Underland Press (Adult Fiction) $25.95 4, 17 ISBN: 978-1-63023-061-6
Living with his sister, Klara, in the aftermath of their parents' deaths in a car accident, Milo Crane becomes fixated on the connection between Klara and Henri, an odd gardener who seems plucked from one of Milo's famous father's gruesome horror novels.
Milo, who narrates the book, is obsessed with details. He spends much of his time building model Greek warships and shipmen. He was happy when Klara returned to their New England home following a brief failed marriage--never mind the profound state of sadness she was in. But her relationship with Henri, a supposed devotee of their father (who wrote novels such as Fair Weather Fiends in rhyming couplets, samples of which run through the novel), and the secrets she shares with the gardener drive Milo into a feverish state of distraction. Paranoia mixes with fact as discoveries Henri makes, including a trove of letters, upend accepted truths about the past. The story unfolds in a kind of hothouse atmosphere until actual events and made-up ones intertwine. None of the characters are to be trusted, least of all Milo (especially since he finds nothing funny about Some Like It Hot). At its best, the book bewitches even as it creates unease. There's an odd formality to the language, possibly a reflection of Barsa's being raised in a German household and not speaking English until he attended school. Fiction may be stranger than truth in some settings; in this one, truth keeps pace step for unsettling step.
With his first novel, the influences of which include the gothic visions of Hawthorne, the morally charged horror of Shirley Jackson, and the twisty storytelling of Italo Calvino, Barsa emerges as a unique voice in contemporary fiction.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Barsa, Michael: THE GARDEN OF BLUE ROSES." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527248246/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=12e122ec. Accessed 24 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A527248246
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
THE GARDEN OF BLUE ROSES BY MICHAEL BARSA
The Garden of Blue RosesThe Garden of Blue Roses by Michael Barsa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
”I didn’t trust his death. Father was an author. He was words. You can’t kill words---can’t lock them up and drive them off a cliff.”
photo Blue20Roses_zpsyeap70si.jpg
The Crane children were raised on tales such as Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Matthew Lewis’s The Monk. Not to mention the lurid tales of Edgar Allan Poe. The ”virus of fear” was planted in their lives early, and the tendrils of dread have spread into every nook and cranny of their brains, coloring everything they see with sepia tones of gothic gloom, creaking stairs, window rattling angst.
What is real? What is mere fabrication from a vivid imagination? I wonder about that all the time. Did I really see that, and more importantly, did I interpret what I saw correctly? The spectres of ghosts and the antics of hobgoblins often seem to dance and skitter about on the edges of my sight. A glimpse of something half seen is but fodder for speculation and the inspiration for quills of shivers to prickle my spine.
Those same quivers of unease frolic along the highways and byways of my neurons as I collect the pieces of this plot to assemble a portrait of insidious intrigue.
Klara, the daughter, attempts to leave. She marries and tries to have a life away from her father, away from the air of apprehension that smothers this house as words of terror trickle down from the attic where John Crane, The John Crane, works on his next creature born of midnight ink and ghostly paper. Klara fails to flourish... out there. She slinks back to the family hearth, bearing more unease than when she left, shattered by the knowledge that her world, once large, has shrunk to the confines of her father’s existence.
Milo, the maker of models, is the narrator of our tale. ”I blended flesh---cinnabar red, yellow, white, olive green---and dipped the brush’s tip. Now the final touch. To breathe life into my lips.” There are varying degrees of strange, and part of the intrigue of this novel is observing enough of Milo’s behavior to decide just how odd the young man is. He is an unreliable narrator, but at the same time, so compelling that I am continually convinced of his version of events. If we think of his life as a mirror reflecting his existence, there is a crack in the corner, and with every creak and groan of the Crane home, that fissure lengthens.
Everything is fine, well as fine as it can be, until Henri shows up. Klara has decided that she wants to build a beautiful garden in honor of their father and mother. She hires Henri, who proclaims himself a great artistic gardener, but he seems to have shed his past like a python casting off his old skin. Milo is naturally curious and concerned about the influence that Henri so quickly achieves over Klara. They are at war from almost the very beginning, a battle for Klara.
”I sent a whisper across his sweat damp back, an insinuated magical word:
‘Malevolent.’
I told myself it was a powerful word, one that Father always loved, with its shades of reverent and violent and malignant. Yet as soon as I’d uttered it, I realized my mistake. Because suddenly it was more than a word. More than a spoken one, I mean. I saw it hanging in the air like an invisible word cloud. What was happening? Henri turned and flashed his yellow teeth. Then the word was gone, bits of its dismembered letters dribbling down his chin. I saw a footless a, severed m, decapitated e. I backed up, moved a chair between us, a flimsy barrier that I was sure would do no good. Yet I clung to it for something tangible to hold onto.
Is this how a fictional character reveals himself?”
A character from his father’s novels keeps rolling around in Milo’s head like a guardian angel of mayhem. Keith Sentelle is/was a psychotic killer and not a role model for anyone. A talon tipped question leaps out of the shadows...who created Keith Sentelle? Was it The John Crane? Or was it Milo? And while we are on this subject, who wrote the...well, I can’t really go there.
I can’t trust what Milo perceives.
The flimsy wall between fiction and reality is perforated with large gaping holes, slashes and gashes, rips and tears, and monster spore litters the ground on both sides of the tattered remains of the ramparts.
”...there was Henry walking through a greenhouse in a loose tan shirt with rolled-up sleeves. I gripped the chair’s leather arm. But I couldn’t look away---my curiosity was aroused. I found myself searching for stitches, scars, rivets---signs that he’d been made---or the unholy aura of a creature summoned from another world.”
Was the death of the Crane parents an accident?
There are so many questions that wiggle their way through this plot. I hunted those questions with a knife, trying to pin them to the floor or to the door or to the ear of a whore. I was careful not to sever them, or one becomes two. Answers are untrustworthy. These words, paragraphs, pages must be read with a spry mind. One cannot remain naive and hope to find a path back to reality.
I’ve seen that people are starting to compare this novel to the works of some of the great psychological horror writers, and they are right in doing so. Michael Barsa has written a brilliant novel with so many beautiful layers. I would read, ponder, and carefully consider all the suggestions of what has been dangled before me before I would read more. Rarely does this occur to me anymore, but my first thought after finishing this book was...I need to begin reading this book again. Barsa gives many nods to those writers who have come before him and I hope he continues to write in this genre. Gothic tales have always been a favorite of mine and I can see Barsa carving out a new genre...modern gothic.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
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THE GARDEN OF BLUE ROSES BY MICHAEL BARSA – BLOG TOUR, BOOK REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY
June 13, 2018 by Patty
The Garden of Blue Roses by Michael Barsa is a real reading stretch for me. I tend to stay away from psychological reads as I’ve noted but this one sounded interesting to me. I thank TLC Book Tours for sending me a copy at no charge for my honest review.
The Garden of Blue Roses by Michael Barsa, book review, AD
ABOUT THE GARDEN OF BLUE ROSES:
Paperback: 248 pages
Publisher: Underland Press (April 17, 2018)
“Ominous, fantastic, and wonderfully malevolent…. I felt the spirits of Shirley Jackson, Edgar Allan Poe, and Albert Camus’ Meursault, whispering to join the fun.”– ALICE SEBOLD, #1 best-selling and award-winning author of The Lovely Bones
A car lies at the bottom of an icy ravine. Slumped over the steering wheel, dead, is the most critically acclaimed horror writer of his time. Was it an accident? His son Milo doesn’t care. For the first time in his life, he’s free. No more nightmarish readings, spooky animal rites, or moonlit visions of his father in the woods with a notebook and vampire make-up.
Or so he thinks.
Milo settles into a quiet routine–constructing model Greek warships and at last building a relationship with his sister Klara, who’s home after a failed marriage and brief career as an English teacher. Then Klara hires a gardener to breathe new life into their overgrown estate. There’s something odd about him–something eerily reminiscent of their father’s most violent villain. Or is Milo imagining things? He’s not sure. That all changes the day the gardener discovers something startling in the woods. Suddenly Milo is fighting for his life, forced to confront the power of fictional identity as he uncovers the shocking truth about his own dysfunctional family–and the supposed accident that claimed his parents’ lives.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Michael Barsa grew up in a German-speaking household in New Jersey and spoke no English until he went to school. So began an epic struggle to master the American “R” and a lifelong fascination with language. He’s lived on three continents and spent many summers in southern Germany and southern Vermont.
He’s worked as an award-winning grant writer, an English teacher, and an environmental lawyer. He now teaches environmental and natural resources law. His scholarly articles have appeared in several major law reviews, and his writing on environmental policy has appeared in The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times. His short fiction has appeared in Sequoia.
The Garden of Blue Roses is his first novel.
Connect with Michael
Website | Facebook
MY OPINION:
If I am to be completely honest, I think this book is smarter than me. This happens when I read literary fiction whether it be an historical novel or this, my first suspense/thriller book in that genre. I get the feeling with these books that things are happening over my head and I’m missing important points and at times that the characters are laughing at me for my lack of insights.
That being written I did read the book even if I didn’t always understand what was going on. It is very well written. There is a lot going on within the book and a fair amount to keep track of which makes for a bit of a brain stretch. The main characters are a pair of siblings whose father is a famous horror writer. They are both a touch….odd. The family lived in a large, old house and kept pretty much to themselves. After the deaths the daughter starts on a big spruce up of the grounds, the garden in particular. Her brother is not pleased at all.
Then the weird begins.
I won’t get into the twists and turns of this intelligent and brain teasing novel. It is not a book you read with a lack of attention, you really have to stay in focus or you miss something that won’t become obvious until three chapters later. It’s a real kicker and it will stay with you for days after you read it. Quite possibly in your dreams…..
RATING:
4