... intimate ... Harrigan’s tale rings true; it engagingly draws upon family lore ... While the leopard is the elusive MacGuffin here, the story really is about the McClartys and Brennans at a turning point in their close-knit family life. Harrigan deftly catches the flavorful sense of a place and time as witnessed by a child: Grady watches and overhears much more than his family realizes, even if he doesn’t understand everything yet ... This story...was the one he really needed to tell.
That the novel is told retrospectively by Grady, now in his seventies, adds an element of nostalgia to this slightly old-fashioned family story, which, in its quiet way, is quite captivating.
... a deeply felt story ... Though the racial issues are unsatisfyingly relegated to a plot point, Grady is an appealing narrator, and Harrigan elegantly conveys the strength of family bonds. Readers who can overlook a few narrative wobbles will find plenty of heart.
... [a] mostly sweet-tempered tale ... Harrigan has a knack for grand-scale historical writing...and here he strives to expand Grady’s modest bildungsroman into a larger political allegory ... Such attempts to show how the past and present rhyme ride somewhat awkwardly alongside Grady’s more interior story, which involves making sense of his mercurial family and his fixation on childish things. But Harrigan does engagingly inhabit his young hero's mind. A likable, nostalgic yarn that explores how minor incidents can catalyze into bigger crises.
