RaveLiteralThese funny, spirited, and self-effacing interlocutions are some of the most enjoyable parts of the novel; one can tell Zambra would defend to the death the very thing he lampoons. Fittingly, the novel also quotes many Chilean poems ... Perhaps Zambra’s writing process is not easy, but his fiction reads as if it was simply plucked from his mind and put on the paper, wholesale—in a good way. Effortless storytelling, in other words, abounds, and nothing is forced, nothing is contrived, as the events unfold. Only a certain kind of genius makes such a thing look easy, and it’s obvious that Zambra has it. The smoothness of the English is also a testament to McDowell’s translation; Zambra’s sentences are fluid and loose ... There is so much delight in Chilean Poet, and even more love.
Javier Marias
RaveThe MillionsThe book probes what defines the boundary between love and infatuation, and how often both can be on shaky ground ... In The Infatuations, we have the possibility that perhaps life, unlike the novel, is quite a different, more complicated thing, and the jaded notions of manipulations and cynicism apparent to Maria are simply products of her bitter worldview ... The Infatuations, containing the qualities of Marías’s best work, is an important addition to his oeuvre.
Colson Whitehead
RaveThe Millions...probably Whitehead’s finest ... For something fantastic (imagine the engineering feat), not a bit of it [the railroad] is lacking in verisimilitude; it possesses its own history and myth, spliced with just the right amount of mystery ... Whitehead’s brilliance is on constant display here.
