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Dust and Light: On the Art of Fact in Fiction
The celebrated National Book Award–winning writer’s intimate exploration of how fact is transformed into fiction.
In this thoughtful collection of essays, Andrea Barrett draws from her experiences writing some of the most acclaimed historical fiction of our time to explore the mysteries and delights of the genre. Inspiration found in the past, she argues, can illuminate fiction, just as dust scatters light and makes the unseen visible. Delving into some of the largest questions in the genre—How does a writer find meaningful subject matter beyond the confines of their life? How are scraps of history transformed into a fully formed narrative?—Barrett explores how she came to create some of her beloved works and explores lessons gleaned from the work of such masters of historical fiction as including Toni Morrison, Leo Tolstoy, Hilary Mantel, and Colm Tóibín. Candid and elegant, Dust and Light is the perfect book for anyone who loves reading fiction set in the past, as well as for anyone aspiring to write it.
In this thoughtful collection of essays, Andrea Barrett draws from her experiences writing some of the most acclaimed historical fiction of our time to explore the mysteries and delights of the genre. Inspiration found in the past, she argues, can illuminate fiction, just as dust scatters light and makes the unseen visible. Delving into some of the largest questions in the genre—How does a writer find meaningful subject matter beyond the confines of their life? How are scraps of history transformed into a fully formed narrative?—Barrett explores how she came to create some of her beloved works and explores lessons gleaned from the work of such masters of historical fiction as including Toni Morrison, Leo Tolstoy, Hilary Mantel, and Colm Tóibín. Candid and elegant, Dust and Light is the perfect book for anyone who loves reading fiction set in the past, as well as for anyone aspiring to write it.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published February 25, 2025
21 people are currently reading
343 people want to read
About the author
Andrea Barrett
42 books333 followersAndrea Barrett is the author of The Air We Breathe, Servants of the Map (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), The Voyage of the Narwhal, Ship Fever (winner of the National Book Award), and other books. She teaches at Williams College and lives in northwestern Massachusetts.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 20, 2025
The secret of writing, I came to think, was that there is no secret: only a life’s long, patient process of exploration. from Dust and Light by Andrea Barrett
I first read Andrea Barrett when Ship Fever was published. I have been reading her ever since. I find her subjects fascinating, enjoy her use of science and natural history, and love her storytelling. Her new book reveals her process of using history in her work, how she finds the ah-ha moment of entry. She includes examples, sharing in detail the history behind her fiction and the story it inspired.
“A good novel or story or poem tries to convey a different kind of knowledge,” Barrett explains; “and to operate on the reader in a different way, through the emotions and the senses.” It is something that fact and research alone can’t achieve. “Without the transforming force of the imagination, the result is only information.”
In the long lists of writers she mentions working in biographical and historical fiction are many I have read and consider favorites. It is a genre I discovered in more recent decades.
Barrett shares that her writing career began in failure as she “tried to figure out who I was and what I might be good and might want to do.” And she stresses the importance of revision: she advises, “…put everything in; then take most of it out”.
I found my Sunday Sentence in this book: “…reading and writing are two of the ways we make sense of our mysterious, sometimes terrible world.” One of her students commented that Barrett was was “one of the best and most honest writing teachers.”
This book offers much to writers, but as a reader, I also found it fascinating.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.
I first read Andrea Barrett when Ship Fever was published. I have been reading her ever since. I find her subjects fascinating, enjoy her use of science and natural history, and love her storytelling. Her new book reveals her process of using history in her work, how she finds the ah-ha moment of entry. She includes examples, sharing in detail the history behind her fiction and the story it inspired.
“A good novel or story or poem tries to convey a different kind of knowledge,” Barrett explains; “and to operate on the reader in a different way, through the emotions and the senses.” It is something that fact and research alone can’t achieve. “Without the transforming force of the imagination, the result is only information.”
In the long lists of writers she mentions working in biographical and historical fiction are many I have read and consider favorites. It is a genre I discovered in more recent decades.
Barrett shares that her writing career began in failure as she “tried to figure out who I was and what I might be good and might want to do.” And she stresses the importance of revision: she advises, “…put everything in; then take most of it out”.
I found my Sunday Sentence in this book: “…reading and writing are two of the ways we make sense of our mysterious, sometimes terrible world.” One of her students commented that Barrett was was “one of the best and most honest writing teachers.”
This book offers much to writers, but as a reader, I also found it fascinating.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.
January 19, 2025
As a writer of historical novels, I was engrossed by this slim volume that didn't so much dispense advice about incorporating fact into fiction, but rather invited us into Andrea Barrett's intellectual engagement with her twin fascinations of historical research and storytelling. A must read for any writer who sets their fiction in the historical past, and an enlightening book for readers who want a peek behind the curtain of what it takes to write deeply researched historical fiction.
October 29, 2024
Wonderful discussion of how history and fiction can intertwine. Thank you to the publisher for the advance copy. I have now pre-ordered the book after it’s published next year — the highest compliment I can pay.
Read
August 22, 2025I enjoyed this rather a lot. First of all, the paper and print quality were delightful. It's a small book, smaller than you might expect, but it made it feel cute somehow.
I'd never heard of the author before. If you have, or, better still, if you're read any of her fiction, you'll probably get more from it than I did. That's not to say it's no use if you haven't read the author before.
If you've read Virginia Woolf or Tolstoy, it'll have more meaning I for you I think. Barrett discusses Woolf at length and I found that section enjoyable, so much so that I'm keen now to read more Woolf. The section on revision was particularly enjoyable and enlightening, especially when the author discussed Tolstoy's revisions of Anna Karenina.
The section I got the most from was the chapter entitled Sea of Information. Barrett talks about how facts don't necessarily make the story.
I take this as a warning not to get too bogged down in research. We are, after all, writing fiction. It was a powerful chapter.
Chapter 6, Life Writing, on the other hand, I found not to be helpful. It's page after page of a story Barrett wrote called His Biography, a story of Oliver Lodge and Daniel Solander. Is it the whole story? I don't know as I ended up skipping it from about half-way through. It illustrates how Barrett used actual facts but then embellished them with fiction to make a compelling story. To me, it wasn't compelling.
I've come away from reading this book with a TBR of hard-to-find titles, including one I feel that I must have immediately: Creating Anna Karenina: Tolstoy and the Birth of Literature's Most Enigmatic Heroine. I'm rereading that novel now as it happens, and I would dearly love to learn more about Tolstoy's revision process.
I'd never heard of the author before. If you have, or, better still, if you're read any of her fiction, you'll probably get more from it than I did. That's not to say it's no use if you haven't read the author before.
If you've read Virginia Woolf or Tolstoy, it'll have more meaning I for you I think. Barrett discusses Woolf at length and I found that section enjoyable, so much so that I'm keen now to read more Woolf. The section on revision was particularly enjoyable and enlightening, especially when the author discussed Tolstoy's revisions of Anna Karenina.
"I wrote in ignorance, from excitement and interest, and with passion: the most pleasant of all ways to write.
The section I got the most from was the chapter entitled Sea of Information. Barrett talks about how facts don't necessarily make the story.
"Caught up in learning about the equivalent of grinders and eye-teeth, I'd forgotten that while facts may be in a text—sometimes delectably—they can't be the entire text. Slowly I began to relearn something I'd once grasped but had lost sight of that emotion—that central element of fiction—derives not from information or explanation, nor from a logical arrangement of facts, but from powerful images and from the qualities of language: diction, rhythm, form, structure, association, metaphor. And sometimes I also had glimmers of another thing I'd once known: how effectively information can be used to wall off emotion. How the gathering of information can take the place of actual understanding. I had built, as it took me some time to realize, quite a substantial wall. As if any wall could block out those two towers."
I take this as a warning not to get too bogged down in research. We are, after all, writing fiction. It was a powerful chapter.
Chapter 6, Life Writing, on the other hand, I found not to be helpful. It's page after page of a story Barrett wrote called His Biography, a story of Oliver Lodge and Daniel Solander. Is it the whole story? I don't know as I ended up skipping it from about half-way through. It illustrates how Barrett used actual facts but then embellished them with fiction to make a compelling story. To me, it wasn't compelling.
I've come away from reading this book with a TBR of hard-to-find titles, including one I feel that I must have immediately: Creating Anna Karenina: Tolstoy and the Birth of Literature's Most Enigmatic Heroine. I'm rereading that novel now as it happens, and I would dearly love to learn more about Tolstoy's revision process.
January 14, 2026
Barrett, who herself writes works that she defines as existing "along the ill-defined border between historical fiction and narratuve history,, here examines the "Art" of doing so and explores multiple related questions such as the relation of fact to fiction, how writers "find, use, misuse, manipulate, transform (sometimes deform) the scraps of history that come to hand." (8-9), and how writers "make art from materials that in other hands might become history r biography (9-10). I found the beginning and ending chapters to be the most interesting. Thought-provoking observations: "Ideally, fiction writers are trying to "understand what our characters understood. No less thatn that, but also no more. Not what people later thought...but what our characters knew, and saw, and read, and felt as they were living the moments they were living" (11); "Is it possible to write subtle, allusive fiction set in the past in which history is not merely backdrop and yet the characters retain the full complexity of their inner lives and arent forced to act merely as witnesses to key events and in which plots predetermined by the incidents of history don't overwhelm considerations of languare and form" (72); intresting terms such as "inspired conjecture" and "critical fabulation"; the question of how one can represent or "recreate" the lives of those, sucha s enslaved persons, who are absent from the archives and the related problem of "how to investigate erased lives, while presenting itself as non-fiction" (159; a warning about the "hazards of strict chronology"; and the observation that the basic difference between biography and fiction is that fiction "punge into his inner life." An important book for readers of historical fiction, biography, history, and non-fiction.
July 23, 2025
This acclaimed work had all the workings of something I would eat up. Where fact meets fiction - especially history and historical fiction. I love the premise, the writing was compelling, and in the end, it didn't take me anywhere.
June 30, 2025
A must read for anyone writing historical fiction or biography. Barrett shows how she engages with research and uses plenty of examples to illustrate her discussion.
May 16, 2025
I love Andrea Barrett's fiction. But I didn't love this non-fiction piece. Because I've read several of the authors that she lists (and lists and lists) here, some of whom she refers to frequently to illustrate various points she makes regarding the nature of "historical fiction," "history in fiction," the writing process, etc., I could appreciate the points she was making. But if you haven't read, e.g., Virginia Woolf, I'm not sure you would "get" the message. I liked learning how Tolstoy's Anna Karenina evolved from Tatiana into Anna. And how Tolstoy's perspective evolved as he labored over his ideas. I imagine that Barrett felt that her points regarding transformation and rewriting, etc. were bolstered by this and other information about Tolstoy. But I'm not sure her ideas could be fully appreciated if her reader weren't intimately familiar with Tolstoy's work. Not enough context. For me, the strongest sections of this book were those in which Barrett discussed how her own writing evolves, how she pieces together her own lovely work, how she researches and researches, how she chooses which facts to use, and how to weave fiction in with those facts to create great writing. I think the context needed to appreciate much of what Barrett addresses here in a more global sense is such that this book will have a very narrow readership. Maybe that's OK!
May 31, 2025
Dust and Light by Andrea Barrett is a luminous meditation on the mysterious intersection where historical fact transforms into living, breathing fiction. In this collection of essays, Barrett—already celebrated for her masterful novels—offers readers an intimate glimpse into her creative workshop, revealing the delicate alchemy that turns research into resonant storytelling.
Barrett's central metaphor is as elegant as it is illuminating: research provides "the bones" of narrative while imagination supplies "the breath and the blood." This isn't merely poetic language—it's a profound insight into how great historical fiction achieves its power. Through vivid examples drawn from her own work, particularly her acclaimed collection "Archangel," Barrett demonstrates how the forgotten experiences of American soldiers in early twentieth-century Russia became the foundation for stories that pulse with contemporary relevance.
The essays shine brightest when Barrett examines her literary heroes, especially the late Hilary Mantel. Her analysis of Mantel's "Wolf Hall" trilogy reveals how historical details become "nucleation sites around which emotion engages and metaphors are richly made"—a phrase that captures the mysterious process by which cold facts become warm human truth. Barrett's admiration for Mantel's craft is palpable, and her insights into the trilogy's construction offer masterclasses in literary technique.
What distinguishes Dust and Light from typical craft books is Barrett's deep understanding that fiction serves a unique purpose in our relationship with the past. She argues persuasively that literature's gift isn't accuracy but authenticity—the ability to render history not as it happened, but as it felt to those who lived it. This distinction elevates the entire collection from mere craft advice to profound reflection on art's essential role in human understanding.
Barrett writes with the same precision and grace that mark her fiction, creating essays that are both intellectually rigorous and emotionally stirring. Her voice carries the authority of decades spent mining archives and imagining lives, yet remains accessible to any reader curious about the creative process.
Dust and Light serves as both love letter to historical fiction and practical guide for anyone seeking to understand how great writers transform the past into living art. It's essential reading for writers, but equally rewarding for anyone who has ever wondered how novels can make distant centuries feel immediate and personal. Barrett has given us a remarkable exploration of fiction's unique power to make history breathe.
Barrett's central metaphor is as elegant as it is illuminating: research provides "the bones" of narrative while imagination supplies "the breath and the blood." This isn't merely poetic language—it's a profound insight into how great historical fiction achieves its power. Through vivid examples drawn from her own work, particularly her acclaimed collection "Archangel," Barrett demonstrates how the forgotten experiences of American soldiers in early twentieth-century Russia became the foundation for stories that pulse with contemporary relevance.
The essays shine brightest when Barrett examines her literary heroes, especially the late Hilary Mantel. Her analysis of Mantel's "Wolf Hall" trilogy reveals how historical details become "nucleation sites around which emotion engages and metaphors are richly made"—a phrase that captures the mysterious process by which cold facts become warm human truth. Barrett's admiration for Mantel's craft is palpable, and her insights into the trilogy's construction offer masterclasses in literary technique.
What distinguishes Dust and Light from typical craft books is Barrett's deep understanding that fiction serves a unique purpose in our relationship with the past. She argues persuasively that literature's gift isn't accuracy but authenticity—the ability to render history not as it happened, but as it felt to those who lived it. This distinction elevates the entire collection from mere craft advice to profound reflection on art's essential role in human understanding.
Barrett writes with the same precision and grace that mark her fiction, creating essays that are both intellectually rigorous and emotionally stirring. Her voice carries the authority of decades spent mining archives and imagining lives, yet remains accessible to any reader curious about the creative process.
Dust and Light serves as both love letter to historical fiction and practical guide for anyone seeking to understand how great writers transform the past into living art. It's essential reading for writers, but equally rewarding for anyone who has ever wondered how novels can make distant centuries feel immediate and personal. Barrett has given us a remarkable exploration of fiction's unique power to make history breathe.
December 30, 2025
Earlier this year, I finally decided to stop making excuses and just write the book I have been toying with for over 30 years, a historical horror taking place in Ancient Egypt. In the past few months, I have been researching, outlining, and starting to write scenes and, honestly, it’s been hard, but also something I am very excited about. Goal is to have the first draft by August 2026 /fingers crossed.
Enter Dust and Light. I am embarrassed to say that I have yet to read the Barrett books on my TBR (going to prioritize doing so in 2026!) but when I saw this charming little collection of essays on my library’s self and realized they were about writing historical fiction, I knew I had to read it. And I am forever grateful I did. Barrett writes so eloquently about her process and how she approached the material of her work in a way that was profoundly moving and informative. Not a ‘how to guide’ but a meander through how historical fiction is a mailable idea of what is and isn’t historic ‘fact’ and what are the stories we are really trying to tell when we center our stories in the past. The lessons from her own experiences are invaluable and I plan on rereading this book before starting any new writing project. One of my top books of the year.
Enter Dust and Light. I am embarrassed to say that I have yet to read the Barrett books on my TBR (going to prioritize doing so in 2026!) but when I saw this charming little collection of essays on my library’s self and realized they were about writing historical fiction, I knew I had to read it. And I am forever grateful I did. Barrett writes so eloquently about her process and how she approached the material of her work in a way that was profoundly moving and informative. Not a ‘how to guide’ but a meander through how historical fiction is a mailable idea of what is and isn’t historic ‘fact’ and what are the stories we are really trying to tell when we center our stories in the past. The lessons from her own experiences are invaluable and I plan on rereading this book before starting any new writing project. One of my top books of the year.
June 3, 2025
Short and sweet glimpse into the author's world. Stimulating for writers and readers alike.
According to Barrett, historical fiction is more about feelings than facts. Yes, staying truthful is important but it is not the ultimate goal of the genre. "One perfectly chosen detail works better than an army of dutifully transcribed facts." Likewise, historical novelists should not simply "copy the motions but inhabit the movement of vitality".
Events and people mentioned in the book:
Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition
Fridtjof Nansen
Virginia Woolf
Oliver Lodge
Allied intervention in Russian Civil War/ 1918 Military Operation
Alpheus Spring Packard Jr
Leo Tolstoy
“I might finally admit to myself that the words with which we attempt to render the truths of our lives can be endlessly revised, but not the life itself.”
According to Barrett, historical fiction is more about feelings than facts. Yes, staying truthful is important but it is not the ultimate goal of the genre. "One perfectly chosen detail works better than an army of dutifully transcribed facts." Likewise, historical novelists should not simply "copy the motions but inhabit the movement of vitality".
Events and people mentioned in the book:
Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition
Fridtjof Nansen
Virginia Woolf
Oliver Lodge
Allied intervention in Russian Civil War/ 1918 Military Operation
Alpheus Spring Packard Jr
Leo Tolstoy
“I might finally admit to myself that the words with which we attempt to render the truths of our lives can be endlessly revised, but not the life itself.”
June 1, 2025
I have enjoyed quite a few books of Andrea Barrett's earlier historic novels where she has often had real scientists mixed in with fictional characters. This book explores her mix of fact and fiction in a collection of eight essays. The essays are all very clear and enlightening and showed well how she was able to mix fact and fiction so well and even some historical that she would love to use but could not feel the fictional elements that might add to his life to make a good story. This is a very enjoyable collection of essays, especially if you have read some of her other work.
May 25, 2025
I saw this on the GR lists, added it to my amazon wish list - at $39 for an ebook - ffs! And then thought to look in Libby and my library had it. WTF? I’ll take that for free. Library saves me forty bucks. NICE.
And boy it is great. I love her chaotic writing method - there is hope for all of the writers who do not understand and never will understand the spreadsheet style of writing.
I took so many screen shots!
5 stars
And boy it is great. I love her chaotic writing method - there is hope for all of the writers who do not understand and never will understand the spreadsheet style of writing.
I took so many screen shots!
5 stars
December 15, 2025
I've taken greater interest in the processes of writing and this gives a glimpse in to the process. Over a relatively short number of pages we learn the volume of source materials and approaches that are sometimes required to for an author to synthesize a new work. That makes it sound mechanical and staid but it's a more inspired and subtle series of essays that are worthwhile for aspiring authors and curious readers.
April 4, 2025
It wasn't planned by me, but I picked this up just as I was starting to read Barrett's novel The Voyage of the Narwhal, and reading them together turned out to be a good choice. Dust and Light shed some light on the choices she makes/made as a historical writer and enhanced my reading of the novel.
Read
May 17, 2025Enjoyed quite a lot. Helped me make some connections between other items I’ve read recently, and reflected certain nuanced truths about how thinking works, or at least how it feels to me, and about why I’ve bounced off of some capital HF historical fiction. Also sent me down many little trails of other books and essays to check out.
August 5, 2025
In this AI-saturated age it was pure pleasure to read about the writing process from a real HUMAN WRITER. In describing her own meandering process - full of failures, false starts, and lots of intuition - Barrett reminds us that only a real human spark at the center of work can lead to successful writing. I was totally re-energized by this book.
December 12, 2025
This is an academically oriented exploration of Barrett's personal motivations for writing historical fiction. She quotes her own works at lenght--at one point reproducing a chapter's worth of material for the reader's delight. Well, not quite so much. It's hard to find the universal in so small a universe.
December 20, 2024
I am currently and actively grappling with some of the questions raised here, about the way fiction writers “transmute, or fail to transmute, those base materials [of history] into something new and strange.” I can recommend but only from this truly self-interested position.
May 2, 2025
Beautifully written essays about how Barrett writes her fabulous fiction.
July 4, 2025
A confirmation of what it takes to write historical fiction
December 16, 2025
Seems to view “nonfiction” and “compelling” as mutually exclusive and is no exception to that self-imposed rule
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews