All [the stories] are a joy to read as Barnes glides between forms...Each story is distinct and indelible, a tribute to the form. Above all they make you think about growing old and what, if anything, can be done about it.

All have a photographic clarity, a psychological realism that embraces extremes of feeling...with a deliciously wry streak

Barnes's steely wit finds best expression when inhabiting the anguished and angry... Their brilliance rather plays upon our petty furies and failures, embellishing them with self-deprecatory wryness...entrancing and curiously cheering

Masterly...his best stories have a strong air of Maupassant about them...extraordinarily effective...a compelling series of vignettes of old age, executed with great skill

Splendid, beautiful...reads like Turgenev

Admirably unsweetened by saccharine sentimentality...exhilaratingly crisp, crystallised by Barnes's wintry intelligence... The clean, acidic accuracy of Barnes's writing is supremely enjoyable

Taken together, these tales present a powerful account of the snatched joys and encumbrances of decrepitude in well-turned prose that brings wit, charm and gravity to its theme

Expert, elegant, mature and passionate.

Compelling tales of family dramas in troubled times.

Characters all but leap off the page with believability in these marvellous stories of life (and death) in Belfast. Funny...and forlorn, they are triumphs of exactness – Joyce and Chekhov come to mind – in which time, place and personality are caught with unshowy authority and not a word seems wasted.

Bitter-sweetness is the mood of many of these stories. MacLaverty is a generous and sympathetic writer, one who is capable of celebrating joy and happiness, while remaining aware that life often brings more disappointments than rewards.

A masterpiece of wit and elegance.

The author charts the various stages of life with engaging curiosity and earthy compassion... The publishers, Jonathan Cape, have done a fine job with this handsome and substantial collection.

All the customary satisfactions of Burnside's writing – anomie, menace, flashes of violence and cruelty, hallucination and snow – but multiplied.

Even Burnside’s most routine stories have beauty and intelligence. He is never less than something like brilliant.

A tremendous collection from a writer working at the full tilt of his gifts.