RaveIrish Times (IRE)The novel weaves these narratives with dexterity and balance, and it is more than just two stories with coincidences of place, character or circumstances. The intersections or inflections suggest historical consciousness; how the past continues to impact the present. It is also a gripping read and the alternating chapters, sometimes just a page long, create a compelling momentum. I couldn’t put it down ... Kidd has created two of the most exuberantly likable characters I’ve encountered in a long time, their beauty both tempered and amplified by flashes of dark humour ... The Night Ship is immersive, vivid and immediate, teeming with sensory detail that could only have come from extensive and diligent research and told in beautifully assured prose. For days after, I felt as if I were still trying to find my land legs. The decision to frame the events of this shipwreck and its meanings through the perspectives of children at different historical moments is devastating and potent.
Tess Gunty
RaveThe Irish Times (IRE)The Rabbit Hutch complex provides a metaphor for the narrative architecture of Tess Gunty’s original and incisive debut ... Blandine provides devastating, funny commentary on everything from literature and the environment to social media, gendered power dynamics and late capitalism ... This is an important American novel, a portrait of a dying city and, by extension, a dying system. Its propulsive power is not only in its insight and wit, but in the story of this ethereal girl who has been brutalised by a system over and over again and yet keeps trying to resolve and save it. She is so vibrantly alive and awake that when I finished this book, I wanted to feel that. I wanted to walk outside. I wanted what is real. I wanted to wake up. Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch is breathtaking, compassionate and spectacular.
Tara M. Stringfellow
RaveIrish Times (IRE)Ferocious and compassionate ... Stringfellow deftly weaves the voices of four women over three generations. Her women are vivid, formidable and funny, exposing the legacy of racial violence not just within the microcosm of family or the titular city, but nationally ... The city shimmers under Stringfellow’s assured prose ... This novel is, in many respects, a Künstlerroman, a portrait of an artist as a young black woman ... Memphis reaches back to literary mothers and towards potential daughters, honouring the strength, creativity and resilience of black women.
Julie Otsuka
RaveThe Irish Times (IRE)From the collective group, Otsuka eloquently singles out one, a swimmer with dementia called Alice. The point of view shifts, now narrated by \'you\', Alice’s daughter, who recounts her mother’s life through fragments of memories both prosaic and profound. The narration here is structured by repeating the clauses Alice remembers and does not remember, repetitions creating rhythmic incantation brimming with both authenticity and heart ... We, us, she, you—Otsuka’s multiple pronouns and points of view blur distinctions. Her wisdom is staggeringly beautiful, implicating each of us.
