barbara was an intricate novel about many things but it was not about what the synopsis led me to believe, not really. while all in all it's a well-written, enjoyable novel, i did read with the expectation that it would explore more of what it promised to, or in more depth. her marriage, for instance, was presented as a complex but essential aspect of her life but didn't end up being that way. or, the interaction between the character herself and the political context she exists within—especially having grown up during the cold war with a father that worked on the atomic bomb—is discussed much later in the book. for most of it the political occurrences are reported in a way that is separate from the character entirely, which i understand may be intentional, but i was misled by the synopsis in this too. however, her mother's suicide was the event that propelled barbara into her subsequent life, and the complexities of the generational experiences she was shaped by were tied inextricably to the political realities of the setting. everything about this book was set up really well, i only wish the author had engaged with it all more in-depth.
thank you to astra house and netgalley for the arc!

Barbara is an arresting exploration of a woman’s psyche, offering a quiet yet unsettling study of 20th-century malaise.

Set in 1975, the novel follows Barbara, an actress in her early 40s, who spends her days confined to a hotel room, engaging in fleeting affairs with her leading man while reflecting on her life and career. At first, she seems poised yet resigned: “I got to be beautiful, and that determined the direction my whole life would take.” But as her narrative unfolds, the weight of her family’s past and the turbulence of the century emerge as central to her identity. While Barbara finds power in her beauty, she’s painfully aware of the effort it takes to fit into “the endless small rectangles controlled by grown men.”

A devoted cinephile, Barbara is captivated by the alchemy of filmmaking, embracing its methods, magic, and contradictions. Her passion for the craft—workshopping characters and creating authenticity in an artificial medium—mirrors her broader quest to make sense of life’s complexities. She applies this deconstructive lens to everything: her parents’ lives, war, gender, performance, and relationships. Her observations are startling in their clarity, such as when she reflects on her father: “He had appeared as a baby in the olden days, and by the time he died, the sky was speckled with satellites.”

Barbara’s voice, marked by its understated tone, is both disarming and absorbing. Is her simplicity a way to contain the chaos of her experiences, or is it a deliberate distancing from their enormity? The narrative, though structured, flows with the organic rhythm of a therapy session—a string of reflections that feel intimate and raw. Scattered photographs deepen its resonance, grounding her memories in a tangible space.

This is a quietly affecting novel, delivering its shocks and uncertainties with measured restraint. Its unassuming tone allows its truths to settle gradually, creating an emotional impact that feels both unexpected and profound.

I initially read the synopsis for this book and thought it was right up my alley, and I was right about that. I enjoyed reading through this book a lot, and it hits a lot of my personal interests, especially when it comes to Hollywood and film darlings trying to make it in the world. That isn't the entire focus of the book for sure--lots of meditations on grief and death are present throughout the novel. All in all, I thought the writing was clear and the pacing good; I enjoyed it a lot.

4 stars

This book on the surface may just appear to be about Hollywood fame and glamour. However, that does not even scratch the surface. Barbara delves into generational trauma and how to navigate through life and the people you meet along the way.

Naturally, I am interested in complex female characters within literature and the effects of beauty standards, societal standards and femininity. This book portrayed it all beautifully.

4.5 ⭐️

I think that I will have to revisit this review as I continue to sit with the book, but I really loved Joni Murphy's Barbara. I am biased; it touches upon many things that deeply interest me, personally: mid-20th century America, the problematization of celebrity, physics and the obsession of the scientist with forward progress, parental relationships complicated by tragedy and circumstance, beauty and femininity, and the experiences and motivations of performers. I think it is worthwhile for anyone interested in any one of those subjects to read this book. I thought the form was also interesting and appreciated the inclusion of photographs to ground the faux memoir in the material world.

I can see why readers who prefer a plot-driven book might feel like Barbara goes nowhere and has no point. I would not recommend the book to people who need a meaty plot and/or to those who don't enjoy literary fiction. I, clearly, don't feel this way. I enjoyed this as an expanded character study of a complex woman who has experienced a life that is at once fabulously charmed and extremely difficult. I will definitely be recommending this book to many people in my life with whom I think Barbara will resonate.

an interestingly done meditation on the characters that feels a bit too simplistic to fully fill its big shoes. 3 stasrs. tysm for the arc.

sadly i could not get into this at all. i did not feel invested in barbara’s story at all, and i think that the author’s depiction of old hollywood was sort of . . . bland? i don’t know. i just didn’t know what to make of it, honestly.

This book was a great look into old Hollywood and fame. As you follow the main character you watch her grow and also dive into her generational trauma. You learn how everyone around her helped shape or influence her own life and the choices she made and how your past choices can shape your life.
Thank you NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for the ARC!

Well, this is highly recommended to all my girlies who took the term “bombshell” literally.

There is so much to love here. My favorite section was one devoted to describing shot by shot an early 70s vampire flick. Such a visually stunning reading experience. Don’t you love when books do that?

I was so excited to get this ARC. And I’m frequently excited to get an ARC. But this one delivered on higher expectations than I could ever even imagine or provide you in this review. Please read this and tell me what you think. I’ve thought about this book for hours.

"What is poisoned may stay poisoned for generations to come."

I approached this novel expecting a deep dive into the trials of fame and Hollywood (think Marilyn Monroe). However, what I encountered was a profound character study that delved into generational trauma. The narrative intricately explores how the protagonist’s parents and their past profoundly influenced her own life. In parallel, we see a similar story at the societal level.

The time period in which the story unfolds plays a crucial role, amplifying the themes of trauma and cause and effect. It’s a fascinating exploration of how the weight of the past can shape our identities.

This novel left a lasting impression on me and I'll be reflecting on the themes for a while. Thank you NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for the ARC!

DNF @ 68% I’m so sorry but couldn’t get into this. The simplistic writing chops and mundane voice didn’t captivate at all. I liked the photographs and overall plotline.. faux autobiographical account. mid 20th century high jinks. just fell flat to me..thank you Astra House and NetGalley. Will give this author another try come time!

The wonder is that the titular character of Joni Murphy’s “Barbara,” an aspiring actress, isn’t more psychological scarred than she is, what with her mother having killed herself and her father having been involved with the Manhattan project, making for unsettling ruminations about thermonuclear war for Barbara (“most will die immediately,” she notes, “and the ones that don’t will wish they had”) and her having had two abortions, one of which is the more chilling for the coldly clinical way in which it’s presented.
So scarring, indeed, have been her experiences that they lend special personal relevance to an experiment she describes in which baby monkeys are deprived of their mothers' care and end up walking in endless circles, putting me in mind of a similar experiment recounted in Louise Doughty’s “Apple Tree Yard” in which mother and baby chimps are put into a cage with an electrified floor and the mothers initially seek to protect their babies but invariably end up placing the babies on the floor and standing on them (who comes up with these experiments?)
For all the compelling, even riveting, reading that the individual scenes in Murphy’s novel make for, though, there’s not really an overall plot as such, something that seems more and more the case in current fiction, perhaps most notably in Rachel Cusk.
Not, again, that individual moments in Murphy’s novel aren’t dramatically compelling (and not just with Barbara, but with her friend Suzanna, when she’s on a trip to the Keys and wakes with a terrible sensation all over and is told it’s a kind of plant pollen, or with Barbara’s husband-to-be Lev, when he’s in the war and comes upon a concentration camp, with its “chemicals and burnt railroad ties, petrol and gangrenous flesh, quicklime and feces”) but the fiction traditionalist in me would have liked a conventional story arc.
Also, and here I’m admittedly picking nits but citing them anyway in the hope that there’s still time for corrections before publication, a car’s “breaks” (rather than, of course, brakes) squeal when the vehicle slows, and when Barbara says there are too many things for her to “innumerate,” she means “enumerate,” and in a scene which I’ve read five times just to make sure I’m not misreading it, a character named Thomas gets his nose broken but in subsequent sentences he’s identified as someone attending to the victim, who is identified as Sylvan several sentences later.

The title character of this novel talks to her readers commenting on her childhood in the Atomic Age through her rise as an actor. Death is a main theme in the book, from the atomic bombs, to her mother's suicide, the JFK assassination, to the death of her caretaker, and then her father. The writing style is fascinating as Barbara relates the incidents of her life to the unknown reader. Barbara is an interesting psychological and historical novel.

This book was a little too dull and lackluster from the great synopsis it had so that was disappointing to me. I think it was extremely slow and lacked a real plot and felt like it was dragging on so I hated that

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publishers for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!!!