RaveNew York Times Book ReviewIts comedy stands in balance to the collection’s more tragic tenor ... expands [Barrett\'s] range, and though the first took place in the fictional Irish town of Glanbeigh, the books share a fabric shot through with dark humor, pitch-perfect dialogue and a signature freshness that makes life palpable on the page. The language counterpoints the sometimes inarticulate desperation of the working-class characters, and that dissonance lends an emotional complexity to their stories ... As a writer, Barrett doesn’t legislate from the top down. His unruly characters surge up with their vitality and their mystery intact. Their stories aren’t shaped by familiar resolutions — no realizations, morals or epiphanies. The absence of a conventional resolution does risk leaving an otherwise charming story like The Silver Coast with the rambling feel of a slice of life. But in the majority of the stories in this book, to reinvent an ending is to reinvent how a story is told, and overall, Homesickness is graced with an original, lingering beauty.
