Novels
Seeking representation for:
Too Many Countries
(Formerly titled You May See a Stranger)After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Czech émigré filmmaker Tonda Menzel and his American wife Bronwen return to Prague. A stunning accusation makes Bronwen wonder if Tonda is the man she thought she knew when she fell madly in love 5 years prior. Can their volatile relationship survive yet another shock? How much self-sacrifice should marriage require?
[Too Many Countries] is an ambitious story of lust masquerading as love spread over 20 years… This book is strikingly written and the characters are compelling… [Too Many Countries] is highly original in its intent and focus.
– The BookLife Prize
Charles bridge in Prague by Martin Vorel
Summer lab techie Barbara Riddle (second from right, on top of rhinoceros) shares a perch with James Watson (third from the left, barefoot) and his research group in front of the Harvard biology labs in 1962.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2019 & BEST INDIE DEBUT NOVELS OF 2019 by Kirkus Reviews
The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke
Barbara writes about laboratory life in her novel The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke. Find it on Amazon (Paperback + Kindle), Barnes & Noble (Paperback + Nook), or Apple iBooks. Visit the Facebook page for Girl Pretending to Read Rilke for more on the achievements of women and girls in science. An award-winning screenplay version by writer/director Laramie Dennis is in development.
Praise for The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke:
Barbara Riddle has given us a sharp, funny glimpse into a little explored moment in women’s recent history. The year is 1963, the same year Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. Brave young women were heading out from college and looking for lives very different from those their mothers had lived. My excitement about The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke stems in part from the fact that I was there—heading for graduate school in science in 1963. I recognize Riddle’s heroine Bronwen for her spirit of adventure as well as her sometimes crippling self-doubts (carefully nourished by the all-too-realistic boyfriend-from-hell). Today’s 20-somethings will recognize her as a woman struggling, like themselves, for personal coherence in a world that still has difficulty seeing us as complete and entire human beings.
– Barbara Ehrenreich, Author of Nickel and Dimed, Political Activist
This engaging first novel from Barbara Riddle, written with verve and humour…
– Dr. Adam S. Wilkins, Editor, BioEssays and Author of Genetic Analysis of Animal Development
The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke is a rite-of-passage novella set in the hothouse atmosphere of cutting-edge molecular biology research in Boston, circa 1963—the ‘last year of the Fifties.’
– Randall Wilson
The Girl Who Pretended to Read Rilke by Barbara Riddle is a wonderful flashback to the heady days of the 60’s…when women in academia and science were outranked and outflanked by men believing their careers to be more important, the civil rights movement was gaining momentum, and sex among young adults was being promoted as a casual event (despite the realities of unanticipated pregnancies and difficult choices). It took me back to the experiences of my 20’s, the contradictions between a sense of freedom and possibilities and peer pressures and affectations, and the familiar environments of scientific research labs. I read the book in one fell swoop, not wanting to put it down.
– Deborah Mcsmith, Global Health Consultant, Loving Your Neighbor - on a Global Scale
This slim little novel is a coming of age story set in the Sixties. It initially caught my fancy because Rilke is one of my favorite poets. I found the book charming. […] No earth-shaking scientific breakthroughs, and no overcharged romances, just a story about a young woman who gets firmly hooked on science and learns how to contribute to it, beautifully told in spare prose that evokes the stresses and desires that science imposes on its followers and the special burdens it inflicts on women who choose to join the ranks, especially fifty years ago. […] I was struck with just how few words it takes Riddle to capture a moment, evoke a feeling or describe a lab procedure. There’s an especially striking passage where she manages to explain in half a page the logic of Bronwen’s idea for an original procedure. What follows is one of the best moments of the book as she carries her innovation to completion while distractions cascade past her in the lab. This book with its whimsical title deserves its place on the LabLit List. Although it focuses on the early formative years, it elegantly describes what motivates most scientists.
– Kirk Smith, Fiction about Science
Riddle debuts with a pleasantly offbeat coming-of-age novel that looks back at the changing roles of women in the 1960s. […] A whimsical, funny, and poignant historical novel.