Brilliant
The Times
An instant classic
Dazed and Confused
A brief, intense and carefully sustained piece of writing about the blurry edges of existence
Guardian
Hilariously gloomy ... a sober reminder to stick to the diet tonic water
Independent
Drips with black humour
New Statesman
Sometimes poetic, sometimes terrible, sometimes ... Read morefunny, often all three at once... Remarkable
Scotsman
Evokes with good humour the lives of his crazed colleagues and clientele, whose nightly revels terminate in violence and vice ... Ablutions doesn't glorify alcoholism, but nor does it present a moral, skilfully dodging the traps it sets itself. That second-person narration, for instance, risks looking like a gimmick but you grow to view it as a symptom of the protagonist's self-obliteration. And where a more conventional novel might have added a dollop of backstory as a key to his pain, here there's nothing but a void
Anthony Cummins
Observer
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