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Reviews
A rich feast to be enjoyed page by page as Mackay, in often dazzling prose, describes the hilarious antics of bibulous writers or, with moving lyricism, those surprised by joy
She is a dazzling sort of a writer
What a superbly imaginative writer she is . . . Mackay takes large risks, but when they come off the result is breathtaking
She writes like an angel wielding a scalpel, dissecting her characters with sublime, sharp-edged prose
Her prose is flawlessly seductive and comic, confidently witty and sensual
Shena Mackay notices a London that passes most writers by . . . Her London is not a convenient backdrop - it is the capital itself, vividly and freshly set down in glancing detail
An adroit novel that incisively but compassionately deploys a dysfunctional family with familiar problems - isolation, failed hopes, mutual deceit - in comic configurations