RaveThe Scotsman (UK)When you might think the novel is in danger of disappearing in a mystical Celtic mist, O’Farrell doubles down. ... O’Farrell will take the narration inside the mind of a dog, or an unborn child making out the shape of a handprint ... The wonder of O’Farrell’s novel - easily her most ambitious - is that it soars above every one of the risks I have listed and to which any less ridiculously talented novelist would have succumbed. Her great-great-grandfather – who also helped map post-Famine Ireland - would be proud of her.
RaveScotsman (UK)Fiendishly elaborate plotting ... It’s fun to read too – right up to a final plot twist that not even the world’s finest clairvoyant could see coming.
Julián Fuks, Tr. Daniel Hahn
RaveThe Scotsman (UK)Occupation is, you will be relieved to hear, far more precise than the 1.2 million words of Marcel’s masterpiece—indeed, none of Fuks’s 41 chapters runs to more than four pages. But even when it moves away from the plight of the migrant squatters, the novel loses none of its appeal, nor does it succumb to the tantric self-indulgence which occasionally besets autofiction. Instead, it is poignant, thought-provoking and engaging. I loved it. Sometimes, it’s even funny.
Nick Hornby
RaveThe Scotsman (UK)As well as the precision of Hornby’s emotional triangulation, there are plenty of other hooks. Credible dialogue, of course ... for all the comedy of seeing Islington liberals squirm over seemingly innocuous racial faux-pas, Hornby adroitly shows the ubiquity of micro aggressions and how quickly they can spiral out of control ... Hornby has had a good eye for the way we live now ... Perhaps he makes more than he needs to of setting his novel at the time of the Brexit referendum, but even this cannot spoil such a well-told, thoughtful, tender and occasionally devastatingly funny love story.
Kirstin Innes
PositiveThe Scotsman (UK)For her debut novel, Kirstin Innes has researched the world of prostitution...assiduously ... The story is soaked in gender politics, not just those of the \'brilliant, articulate and inspiring\' women Fiona meets at the local branch of the sex workers’ union, but the way in which Rona’s daughter is convinced her mother is \'a Barbie princess\' ... It’s clearly right that fiction should try to drag prostitution from out of the shadows and shed light on everyday sexism in the process. Innes does both, and I don’t doubt that this is a range-finder for something more emotionally precise to match her undoubted writerly skills and ambition.
