SOURCE: McLaughlin, Robert L. Review of Briar Rose, by Robert Coover. Review of Contemporary Fiction 17, no. 2 (summer 1997): 272.

In the following positive review, McLaughlin compliments Briar Rose, calling it a “classic by a contemporary master.”

Last year, Robert Coover marked the thirtieth anniversary of his first novel with John's Wife, a huge, sprawling narrative tracing dozens of characters over thirty years or so of their town's and our country's history. Now, less than a year later, Coover has given us another novel, Briar Rose, but this one is a compact, focused story with only three characters, but nevertheless a story as timeless as people's desire to know exactly who they are and why they're here.

Coover has frequently found new ways to tell old stories, from Noah's Ark to Pinocchio to Casablanca. And he has frequently told stories through shifting points of view, repetition, and variation, to create a...