Darkly, sparsely, and with sustained intensity, Hyland constructs the montage of a killer . . . a dash of Camus's Meursault is added to the pathology . . . She writes intelligently about her subject's growing institutionalization, his bafflement growing into boredom then safety as Patrick gradually finds a kind of happiness inside . . . From within these shady borderlands Hyland has produced a memorable study. -- Toby Lichtig * * Times Literary Supplement * *
A novel of extraordinary power...Hyland tells her story in a supercharged present tense, tremblingly aware of physical detail. ... it is a profound achievement * * Guardian * *
M.J. Hyland has a ferocious imagination, and an eerie way of squeezing the distance between author, character and reader, so that the atmosphere of the book soaks and penetrates the reader's mind. When you've been reading Hyland, other writers seem to lack integrity; they seem wedded to weak confabulations, whereas she aims straight for the truth and the heart. * * Hilary Mantel * *
A tour de force. Hyland illuminates this man's damaged soul with such a steely, brilliant clarity that your heart breaks for him. -- HELEN GARNER
Three or four days [after finishing the novel], Hyland's white-hot prose was still smouldering in my head and I found myself intensely, almost helplessly, moved by Oxtoby and his tragedy * * Financial Times * *
This is an expertly paced, gripping novel that doesn't falter and never compromises its emotional truth * * The Times * *
Brilliant. * * Irish Times * *
