The most perceptive author of the twentieth century

Yates is a realist par excellence, the natural heir to Hemingway's pared-to-the-bones style and the antecedent of Carver's flat minimalism. There is something else though: a kind of transparency, almost a translucency, that owes more to Fitzgerald, his great literary hero... Read and weep

Yates created what is almost the New York equivalent of Dubliners

Eloquent and powerful... Wryly funny even when he's quietly tearing your heart out

Extravagantly gifted... Yates' eye and ear are unsurpassed; I know of no writer whose senses are in more admirable condition. It is they that make his characters live, make these stories move and beat - they, and the sure perfection of his writing

The stories are sharply focused, beautifully written and powerfully moving. I know of no collection like it. Deservedly it has become a classic

Yates is a master of the form

Dark, funny and disturbing

These 10 inventive stories, set mostly in the Florida Everglades, mix satire and sophisticated whimsy

Karen Russell has produced an engaging debut. Her ability to integrate mythology and the supernatural with the very contemporary...is reminiscent of Angela Carter, but unlike Carter's many imitators, Russell never descends into whimsy... In St Lucy's, humans, ghosts and animals are utterly real; and Russell sells the genuine article, a seemingly effortless writer

These are stories that will sneak into the back of your brain and lurk there long after you are finished reading.

Poignant and wonderful story...concentrates, without effort, all Malouf's themes...it needs to be read