MixedThe Irish Times (IRE)The novel is a quixotic achievement by one of our most exciting writers. As a rock’n’roll fairy story and myth about the Muse, it’s a triumph. I was less enamoured by its view of women ... Tautly edited, the sheer stylistic euphoria of Keenan’s form seems to breathe itself to life ... even allowing for a preposterous assertion of her own emptiness, Aneliya’s service of male fantasy feels emotionally unconvincing. The beauty of young girls saving old men, especially famous artists, is a problematic beauty.
Lisa Harding
PositiveIrish Times (IRE)Compelling ... Harding seamlessly excavates our superficial notions of goodness ... I might have liked the book even more had Harding poked at motherhood without giving Sonya a problematic family past. The altered state of parenthood, a high as dizzying as alcohol, is too rarely discussed. We all need something bigger than ourselves. Parents of younger children can find themselves locked in a lonely, irreducible passion ... Harding brilliantly delineates Sonya’s clinging to Tommy ... Harding retains, to the end, those ambiguities that made Sonya a stellar performer of the broken women of Ibsen and Chekov. By refusing to finally \'solve\' Sonya, she boldly exposes those hypocrisies of the chattering classes that create manipulative mothers and destroy childhoods.
