PositiveThe Observer (UK)The narrative relies on Doyle’s characteristic banter—unattributed, sometimes comic, often lushly expletive ... Don’t expect linearity, though: this is a tale constantly interrupted by flashbacks, forever getting knocked off course by old tensions and fresh ambivalence ... Is Joe simply a man caught cheating, trying to make of it something mystical, inevitable? It’s a question that tests memory and the ownership of stories, the reader’s patience, too, on occasion ... amid their sozzled swordplay are sentences that casually slay with their mute concision ... The finale comes as a sobering surprise, opening wide a novel that has contrived to feel at once capacious and claustrophobic. After the guilt and envy stirred up by the booze comes a great generosity of feeling, a celebration of love in all its forms, not least between two friends old enough to know better.
