PositiveThe Telegraph (UK)Laugh-out-loud funny ... The strength of this memoir lies in Paterson’s range of verbal pyrotechnics allowing him to light upon serious themes with devastating accuracy ... Combative yet compassionate, entertaining yet undeceived, Toy Fights recognises the importance of not being too earnest, and is wholly authentic for it.
Ilya Kaminsky
PositiveThe Guardian (UK)... imaginatively succeeds through its use of deafness as extended metaphor, when voices clamour and truth becomes \'fake news\'. Like the townsfolk he writes about, who invent a sign language as a riposte to atrocity and unrest, Kaminsky’s fluid yet fragmented verse drama is a novel response to conflict and miscommunication, hoping for peace rather than \'silence, like the bullet that’s missed us\'.
