Barnes’s newest collection of short stories is lively, sharp and curious, spanning the continent and delving into the flaws and foibles of a vast array of characters. ‘Mike Barnes brings to Aquarium a deceptively relaxed precision and a grown-up acceptance of puzzlement as a natural state of mind.’
Movement is the key to this collection. The settings for the stories in Aquarium range from metropolis to hamlet, from a Florida retirement community to a northern Ontario reserve on the brink of freeze-up. The people in Aquarium are as varied as its locales; the characters are landlords, actors, drinkers, painters, teachers, doctors, steelworkers, fishermen, students, shopkeepers, weathermen, clerks and security guards. Couples are a recurrent theme: the dreams and devices by which lovers join or drift apart.