PositiveBOMB Magazine...[Quin\'s] most plot-driven and indebted to first influences: Dostoyevsky, Woolf, Beckett, Greek theater. An Oedipal farce set in a seedy British seaside resort ... The writing is most vigorous when Berg’s out roaming the waterfront, projecting his mental disquiet onto the landscape ... Quin eschews redemption or resolution, suggesting that the Oedipal drama will go on endlessly in new configurations, an unmistakably Freudian conclusion. Berg is a timely case study of a novel precisely because of the connections it draws out between male entitlement, misogyny, and fantasies of violent revenge ... For a book mostly mired in bathos, Berg is never dull. Classical reversals keep things interesting, as when Berg disguises himself as a woman to escape his pursuers ... [Quin\'s] portrait of Berg is by turns appalling, compassionate, and cynically aware of the limitations of prescribed (read: Freudian) self-knowledge. It’s as good an introduction to her perverse, insurgent vision as any of her books.
