RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewI was reminded of Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman, which is also full of uncertainty as to who is alive and who is not. This gives to Barry’s novel a kind of shimmer and motility some will find attractive (I did), and others a source of frustration ... Barry writes about this with compassion and quiet rage. He has a high style, though one tethered to the demotic and homely (as befits a protagonist called Kettle). There are lovely sentences...and the novel, for all its grimness, can be very funny.
