What do you think?
Rate this book
Eternal Night at the Nature Museum
The characters in Eternal Night at the Nature Museum take refuge in strange, repurposed spaces. A middle-aged addict emcees at demolition derby, which transforms into a hostel—then a cult. An elderly folk-artist builds mailbox reproductions of her dream homes. A church congregates in an abandoned Hardee's. Octogenarians escape their nursing home. Unsupervised children sell knives to the neighborhood. In twenty vivid, rowdy, buoyant stories, Tyler Barton assembles a collection of places to crash, if only for the night.
222 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 1, 2022
6 people are currently reading
396 people want to read
About the author
Tyler Barton
10 books35 followersTyler Barton is the author of The Quiet Part Loud (2019) which won the Turnbuckle Chapbook Prize from Split Lip Press. He’s the event producer for FEAR NO LIT, a literary organization he co-founded with Erin Dorney. His short fiction has been published widely in journals and magazines and is forthcoming from Subtropics, The Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, and Paper Darts.
In the fall of 2018, Tyler attended the Anne LaBastille Writing Residency in the Adirondacks, where he finished the manuscript for his full-length story collection. His story, “The Orbit of Us” won the 2017 Fall Fiction Prize from the Chicago Review of Books. He was a runner-up in the 2018 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest and the 2016 Lake Prize from Midwestern Gothic. His story, “K,” was selected as a finalist in the 2017 Best of the Net. His stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net.
In the fall of 2018, Tyler attended the Anne LaBastille Writing Residency in the Adirondacks, where he finished the manuscript for his full-length story collection. His story, “The Orbit of Us” won the 2017 Fall Fiction Prize from the Chicago Review of Books. He was a runner-up in the 2018 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest and the 2016 Lake Prize from Midwestern Gothic. His story, “K,” was selected as a finalist in the 2017 Best of the Net. His stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
November 3, 2025
Enjoyed every page here. The stories were well-paced and clever, with moments that so clearly encapsulate life in one-stoplight towns. I felt like so many could have been happening right down the street from my childhood home. The characters are vulnerable and complex and weird and enchanting. I carried my copy around with me for about a month and it was a great companion whenever I had the time to read.
May 16, 2025
I did not like this!
March 6, 2022
Finished this gorgeous collection today. A meditation on absent fathers and people looking to escape their situations and holiness and so much more. ❤️
March 24, 2022
Greatly enjoyed this book of stories. Tyler's stories are quirky, strange, often quite sad but with a dark sense of humor. His main characters are lost souls. The stories reminded me a lot of George Saunders' work.
November 11, 2021
3.5 stars / an offbeat, enticing collection
May 2, 2025
I am a sucker for a collection of short stories, yet find contemporary ones hard to come by, so I was psyched to come across this collection. It was a Thursday night, I heard about a reading at a friend's bar and took a chance. I hadn't heard of any of the author's reading, but at worst I would have a drink, some good food, and support some author's who are braver than I am (in terms of standing on a stage and reading their work). While I solidly enjoyed all of the authors, Tyler Barton really stood out. I picked up Eternal Night at the Nature Museum from the merch table (is that what it is called at a reading?) without knowing what it was about (or honestly that the format was short stories).
Tyler's voice comes through in each of these stories, in each of these characters, regardless of of different, diverse, or quirky they are. These stories draw you in and do what all great short stories do - make you pause, look around, assess, then free you out into your world, slightly changed by what you have just experienced.
Tyler's voice comes through in each of these stories, in each of these characters, regardless of of different, diverse, or quirky they are. These stories draw you in and do what all great short stories do - make you pause, look around, assess, then free you out into your world, slightly changed by what you have just experienced.
October 4, 2021
http://www.courtneymlandis.com/blog/b...
The title story of this collection, Eternal Night at the Nature Museum, actually has a longer title: “Eternal Night at the Nature Museum, a Half-Hour Downriver from Three Mile Island.” “Eternal Night,” rather, is one of a few flash pieces of the collection, a nebulous and dreamy impression of a shuttered museum within the imagination. Throughout Eternal Night, Barton’s debut story collection, we have a mix of “proper” short stories and flash, the funny and the absurd, the striking and the lighthearted.
As a disclaimer: I know Tyler, in the slight, nodding way that literary 30-somethings in a small city will inevitably know of one another (not to mention my personal instinct for sussing out all dachshund owners within a 1-mile radius). I’ve attended several events that the nonprofit he and his partner founded, Fear No Lit, hosted in Lancaster pre-pandemic. I am grateful for the galley copy from Sarabande books, but all thoughts here are my own and totally unsolicited and unreviewed by the author. I also likely would have read this book anyways, because I make a point of reading everything blurbed by T Kira Mahealani Madden that I can find.
The small-town vibes are clear in several of these stories, and they feel sharp and clear and non-romanticized in a way that shows a real affection and history of actually being in small towns. (Non-romanticized on either extreme; we get neither the sunshiney, apple pie Americana, nor the gritty, faux-realism of Hillbilly Elegy.) It’s hard to resist quoting the whole first page, but the opening of “Once Nothing, Twice Shatter” captures this perfectly:
“Luther buys cars. It’s what he does and it’s what his billboard says he does—LUTHER BUYS CARS. He bought my dad’s car. He bought the mayor’s car. He came to a surprise party for my mom’s sixty-fifth and left with her Sportage. Think back. If you lived in Gettysburg in the late aughts, Luther probably bought your car... I was en route to leaving town, to finding peace, to ridding my life of so much me, when I crashed into the back of an Integra, transfixed by the riddle of its vanity plate— HEDIE4U. My brakes tried... Luther went shh, and then he bought my Buick.”
These are emotionally twisty stories, funny one second and heartbreaking the next, in a really quiet, sly way that gets you in the ribs like a sharp knife. It’s hard to say what Barton does better, the characterization or the language; even minor characters that we meet for only a sentence or two are so vividly painted and feel wildly real. The author Brandton Taylor coined the term “character vapor” in his Sweater Weather newsletter, in describing the “millenial” writing that’s so trendy now, where “what matters are the vibes.” Barton’s writing has vibes, to be sure— small-town vibes, disaffected Millennial vibes, 3-am-Waffle-House vibes, unwitting meme vibes— but the vibes are clearly anchored in vivid, striking reality.
“Our church had a drive-through window. It was meant for those who couldn’t make the service, who couldn’t take another night like the one they’d had before— those disgruntled and hungry few who, wishing the squat blue building was still a Hardees, drove through just to air their grievances. The window, its glass permanently stained with bird shit, was open all weekend long.”
On a sentence level, you can see— or maybe this is my bias showing, knowing something of Barton’s background with teaching and workshopping— a really strong, delightful joy in the craft of writing. Each word and sentence feels deliberately crafted, but moves and flows with a sense of ease that only really comes from a mastery of the art.
The title story of this collection, Eternal Night at the Nature Museum, actually has a longer title: “Eternal Night at the Nature Museum, a Half-Hour Downriver from Three Mile Island.” “Eternal Night,” rather, is one of a few flash pieces of the collection, a nebulous and dreamy impression of a shuttered museum within the imagination. Throughout Eternal Night, Barton’s debut story collection, we have a mix of “proper” short stories and flash, the funny and the absurd, the striking and the lighthearted.
As a disclaimer: I know Tyler, in the slight, nodding way that literary 30-somethings in a small city will inevitably know of one another (not to mention my personal instinct for sussing out all dachshund owners within a 1-mile radius). I’ve attended several events that the nonprofit he and his partner founded, Fear No Lit, hosted in Lancaster pre-pandemic. I am grateful for the galley copy from Sarabande books, but all thoughts here are my own and totally unsolicited and unreviewed by the author. I also likely would have read this book anyways, because I make a point of reading everything blurbed by T Kira Mahealani Madden that I can find.
The small-town vibes are clear in several of these stories, and they feel sharp and clear and non-romanticized in a way that shows a real affection and history of actually being in small towns. (Non-romanticized on either extreme; we get neither the sunshiney, apple pie Americana, nor the gritty, faux-realism of Hillbilly Elegy.) It’s hard to resist quoting the whole first page, but the opening of “Once Nothing, Twice Shatter” captures this perfectly:
“Luther buys cars. It’s what he does and it’s what his billboard says he does—LUTHER BUYS CARS. He bought my dad’s car. He bought the mayor’s car. He came to a surprise party for my mom’s sixty-fifth and left with her Sportage. Think back. If you lived in Gettysburg in the late aughts, Luther probably bought your car... I was en route to leaving town, to finding peace, to ridding my life of so much me, when I crashed into the back of an Integra, transfixed by the riddle of its vanity plate— HEDIE4U. My brakes tried... Luther went shh, and then he bought my Buick.”
These are emotionally twisty stories, funny one second and heartbreaking the next, in a really quiet, sly way that gets you in the ribs like a sharp knife. It’s hard to say what Barton does better, the characterization or the language; even minor characters that we meet for only a sentence or two are so vividly painted and feel wildly real. The author Brandton Taylor coined the term “character vapor” in his Sweater Weather newsletter, in describing the “millenial” writing that’s so trendy now, where “what matters are the vibes.” Barton’s writing has vibes, to be sure— small-town vibes, disaffected Millennial vibes, 3-am-Waffle-House vibes, unwitting meme vibes— but the vibes are clearly anchored in vivid, striking reality.
“Our church had a drive-through window. It was meant for those who couldn’t make the service, who couldn’t take another night like the one they’d had before— those disgruntled and hungry few who, wishing the squat blue building was still a Hardees, drove through just to air their grievances. The window, its glass permanently stained with bird shit, was open all weekend long.”
On a sentence level, you can see— or maybe this is my bias showing, knowing something of Barton’s background with teaching and workshopping— a really strong, delightful joy in the craft of writing. Each word and sentence feels deliberately crafted, but moves and flows with a sense of ease that only really comes from a mastery of the art.
August 4, 2022
Eternal Night at the Nature Museum by Tyler Barton is another one of those finds that caught my eye at the local library. I was drawn to the title, and to the cover. I liked the idea of an interesting, off-beat collection of short stories. I'm still slightly surprised by what I found.
These stories are stark and interesting. They are infused with a small-town feel to such a degree that when I read that Barton himself was from a small-town I was not in the least surprised. These stories run the gamut from flash fiction (the title story itself is such) to something more approximating a novella in the opening story where a man goes from buying used cars for a demolition derby to running a destructive cult. There are stories of children's selling knives, and a church running out of a Hardees - drive up to the drive-thru window at night, and you could get some absolution.
One of the most interesting stories, to me, was that of the nursing home. Tyler Barton writes of the octogenarians finding love and loss in the assisted living facility, losing memory yet still trying to find love and connection in such a way that it brought tears to my eyes. I wondered if he had an experience caring for a loved one with alzheimers/dementia as I did. I was unsurprised to find he had worked in a nursing home. There was such humanity written into those characters that it... really hit home and hit home hard.
This is a book well worth savoring, and I slightly regret finishing it in a single day. This is an author to watch. He'll take you places, if you're willing to crash on his couch for an evening and let him tell you a story.
These stories are stark and interesting. They are infused with a small-town feel to such a degree that when I read that Barton himself was from a small-town I was not in the least surprised. These stories run the gamut from flash fiction (the title story itself is such) to something more approximating a novella in the opening story where a man goes from buying used cars for a demolition derby to running a destructive cult. There are stories of children's selling knives, and a church running out of a Hardees - drive up to the drive-thru window at night, and you could get some absolution.
One of the most interesting stories, to me, was that of the nursing home. Tyler Barton writes of the octogenarians finding love and loss in the assisted living facility, losing memory yet still trying to find love and connection in such a way that it brought tears to my eyes. I wondered if he had an experience caring for a loved one with alzheimers/dementia as I did. I was unsurprised to find he had worked in a nursing home. There was such humanity written into those characters that it... really hit home and hit home hard.
This is a book well worth savoring, and I slightly regret finishing it in a single day. This is an author to watch. He'll take you places, if you're willing to crash on his couch for an evening and let him tell you a story.
August 2, 2022
A wonderful collection of stories giving voice to the lonely, at turns both funny and heartbreaking, rendered with a great deal of care.
The writing is consistently clever, with enough wit to kill a horse (as they say).
Often the stories dip into the surreal, both in tone and in setting, resulting in compact stories that offer a kind of vivid, crystallized weirdness: subjects include (but are far from limited to) a group of men who meet in a Denny’s to discuss their shared therapist, a date between two doomsday preppers, a demolition derby cult set on the renunciation worldly desire, a washed up cowboy newly minted as a meme, and a fanatically devoted neighborhood watchman.
Beneath the skin, the collection has somewhat of an elegiac quality, in the broad sense: I feel that at its heart, it’s a somber glimpse into the fringes of rural America; the insularity of these places is an undercurrent in throughout. In a way, I think the book is about a longing for community. The host of peculiar characters within are so very human, and their imperfections bring them to life on the page, because the portraits of these people are done with sympathy. The wide variety of voices and strong personalities is a triumph. My favorites of the bunch were “Once Nothing, Twice Shatter,” “Black Sands,” and “K,”.
“Eternal Night at the Nature Museum” is an invitation to slip between the cracks and into a selection of strange, lonely, and captivating private worlds.
The writing is consistently clever, with enough wit to kill a horse (as they say).
Often the stories dip into the surreal, both in tone and in setting, resulting in compact stories that offer a kind of vivid, crystallized weirdness: subjects include (but are far from limited to) a group of men who meet in a Denny’s to discuss their shared therapist, a date between two doomsday preppers, a demolition derby cult set on the renunciation worldly desire, a washed up cowboy newly minted as a meme, and a fanatically devoted neighborhood watchman.
Beneath the skin, the collection has somewhat of an elegiac quality, in the broad sense: I feel that at its heart, it’s a somber glimpse into the fringes of rural America; the insularity of these places is an undercurrent in throughout. In a way, I think the book is about a longing for community. The host of peculiar characters within are so very human, and their imperfections bring them to life on the page, because the portraits of these people are done with sympathy. The wide variety of voices and strong personalities is a triumph. My favorites of the bunch were “Once Nothing, Twice Shatter,” “Black Sands,” and “K,”.
“Eternal Night at the Nature Museum” is an invitation to slip between the cracks and into a selection of strange, lonely, and captivating private worlds.
September 11, 2021
Really enjoyed this one! It's gotta be difficult to capture humanity like this--a reality you can smell and characters you can hear & see & recognize but actions to achieve goals that go beyond expectation. Each one of these people shoot for something unique that might change them for good, but they go about it in ways I haven't really seen before--Odd. Desperate. Only them.
The language is superb, littered with voicey aphorisms only available in the fields and streets and backyards of places like southcentral Pennsylvania, near the Minnesota River, and quiet small towns like them. Some of my favorite stories include "Once Nothing, Twice Shatter," "Stay, Go," "K," and "Seven Corners, Pennsylvania."
The themes covered in here aren't like other themes, or at least they don't finalize like other ones. We recognize them happening, and we see the growths, and we see the splintered attempts at growth, but we often end on details that don't answer them for us, making it feel like everything hasn't been leading up to this, but leading through it. The stories feel full and whole, without making it feel like they're ever really going to be over.
I've read a lot of story collections this year, but none have felt as odd and sharp and as capable of capturing an array of singular lives as this one has. Thanks to Sarabande Books for the ARC. 🙌
The language is superb, littered with voicey aphorisms only available in the fields and streets and backyards of places like southcentral Pennsylvania, near the Minnesota River, and quiet small towns like them. Some of my favorite stories include "Once Nothing, Twice Shatter," "Stay, Go," "K," and "Seven Corners, Pennsylvania."
The themes covered in here aren't like other themes, or at least they don't finalize like other ones. We recognize them happening, and we see the growths, and we see the splintered attempts at growth, but we often end on details that don't answer them for us, making it feel like everything hasn't been leading up to this, but leading through it. The stories feel full and whole, without making it feel like they're ever really going to be over.
I've read a lot of story collections this year, but none have felt as odd and sharp and as capable of capturing an array of singular lives as this one has. Thanks to Sarabande Books for the ARC. 🙌
July 16, 2022
There’s a reason this took me three months to read, and it’s that I just never got invested in the writing. I’ve been reading this Alice Munro collection now concurrently with this and in those stories, everything feels so important. I get so personally absorbed into every scene and every interaction and these…just don’t do that for me. I liked some stories here and there, but a lot of them felt more like they could be fun backdrops for great stories, rather than actually being great stories themselves.
Read
October 4, 2023delicately written, at times enchanting ("iowa darter" was a lovely merging of science and psychology), but veering between hyperbolic small-town america trauma porn & bizarrely racist, sexist stereotypes. i'm still struggling to understand how an activist for the unhoused and elderly could write a story about a fourteen-year-old girl in a predatory relationship with an undocumented immigrant (barton makes a point of noting his immigration status, despite the fact that we learn almost no other details about him) and be ignorant of its implications.
November 17, 2021
I loved Barton’s first collection, The Quiet Part Loud, and was eager to read more. Some stories are flash and some are longer, but all really resonated with me. I kept underlining beautiful phrases and find myself wondering about the characters even though I was only in their lives for a brief moment.
January 11, 2025
So I knew this was a collection of short stories, but somehow or another, I got the impression that it was a collection of short stories about an enchanted nature museum.
So none of the short stories interested me. I had to skim through all pretty much. So this rating is more due to my unexpectedness of what this was more so than anything else.
So none of the short stories interested me. I had to skim through all pretty much. So this rating is more due to my unexpectedness of what this was more so than anything else.
September 15, 2023
I’ll admit it, the cover got me. Though I have discovered that short story collections just aren’t for me, this kept my interest. These stories were at times entertaining but at times a little heartbreaking. There are definitely a few that stood out to me that will stay with me for some time.
December 19, 2021
Having a good run with story collections—this is another great one, with lots of down and out characters and off-kilter settings. Beautifully written and hard to put down.
January 29, 2022
Fantastic!
April 28, 2022
Feels like these stories were literally written for me to love. Absolutely phenomenal. Tyler Barton is now one of my favorite living writers.
July 25, 2022
Poetic and abstract to the point of feeling a bit inaccessible. That said, well written and interesting, just maybe not my particular cup of tea
July 14, 2023
An excellent collection. A great blend of humor and pathos and Pennsylvanian oddness. Highly recommended.
February 14, 2024
Poignant and well written.
May 28, 2024
Lots of extremely compelling stories in here. Love a collection about weird guys being weird. Going to be thinking about the mailbox one for a very long time.
October 21, 2022
I laugh with, then pity, then relate to, then laugh at, then fear these characters, only to follow suit with their motives, then their choices, then who they REALLY are, then what they’re ACTUALLY DOING, all within 10ish [tenish, anyone?] pages. The 1-3 page vignettes peppered throughout floored me. This is a short book, but I made it last all week. Lovely, lovely, lovely.
July 18, 2023
not a bad book, but not my style
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews