MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewWhat kind of poetry can you write if everything about you is a lie? That’s the question at the heart of The Age of Disenchantments, Aaron Shulman’s intriguing narrative of literary ambition and family dysfunction ... Shulman, who appears to have read everything ever written by or about [the Paneros] ... Shulman sometimes seems uncertain what lesson to draw from his subjects’ baroque carryings-on, asserting that \'they mean whatever we want them to mean.\'
Anthony Doerr
RaveThe Washington PostEnthrallingly told, beautifully written and so emotionally plangent that some passages bring tears, it is completely unsentimental … Doerr achieves…[the] wonders of this book by creating a structure as intricate as any model made by Marie-Laure’s father. Cutting back and forth in time, he creates nearly unbearable suspense. Every piece of back story reveals information that charges the emerging narrative with significance, until at last the puzzle-box of the plot slides open to reveal the treasure hidden inside. A lesser novelist would be content with this achievement, but Doerr twists the puzzle-box once more and brings his novel into the present.
Susan Quinn
PositiveThe New York Times Book Review[Quinn] is both circumspect and suggestive about the nature of their relationship ... This is a brisk, readable account of the intersection between these two women, but its subtitle is a misnomer. Eleanor was already shaped, as a writer and activist, when they met, and the period of Hick’s influence lasted only from 1932 to 1938. The book’s real value is as a parallel portrait of two unconventional women caught up in the maelstrom of 20th-century politics and world affairs.
