The escalation of violence and desire for revenge has deliberate echoes of the Irish Troubles
Observer Books of the Year
A visceral reworking of Oresteia
Observer
It couldn't have been done better
Scotsman
A daring, and triumphant return, to the Oresteia... bleakly beautiful twilight of the Gods.
Boyd Tonkin
The Arts Desk
The book's mastery of pacing and tone affirm the writer as one of our finest at work today.
John Boland
Irish Independent
A Greek House of Cards... Just like Heaney at the end of his Mycenae lookout, Toibin's novel augurs an era of renewal that comes directly from the cessation of hostilities.
Fiona Macintosh
Irish Times
A haunting story, largely because Toibin tells it in spare, resonant prose...
Lucy Hughes-Hallett
New Statesman
A spellbinding adaptation of the Clytemnestra myth, House of Names considers the Mycenaen queen in all her guises: grieving mother, seductress, ruthless leader - and victim of the ultimate betrayal.
Vogue
In a novel describing one of the Western world's oldest legends, in which the gods are conspicuous by their absence, Toibin achieves a paradoxical richness of characterisation and a humanisation of the mythological, marking House Of Names as the superbly realised work of an author at the top of his game.
Daily Express
Graphic, vicious, beautiful retelling of ancient myths.... Ultimately the book is a stark, timeless and brilliantly rendered tale of power in a world, as ever, riven by conflict.
'I' Newspaper
[An] intense, thought-provoking and original novel . . . Toibin's book transforms this ancient story into a lyrical, melancholy meditation on closeted desire, which implicitly comments on the aftermath of the Irish Troubles'
Emily Wilson
TLS
Toibin's retelling is governed by compassion and responsibility, and focuses on the horrors that led Clytemnestra to her terrible vengeance. Her sympathetic first-person narrative makes even murder, for a moment, seem reasonable (...) Toibin's prose is precise and unadorned, the novel's moments of violence told with brutal simplicity. But its greatest achievement is as a page-turner. In a tale that has ended the same way for thousands of years, Toibin makes us hope for a different outcome
The Economist
This is a novel about the way the members of a family keep secrets from one another, tell lies and make mistakes.. .
Literary Review
If there is a more brilliant writer than Toibin working today, I don't know who that would be
Karen Joy Fowler A dramatic, intimate chronicle of a family implosion set in unsettling times
Publishers' Weekly
What is truly miraculous, though, is how Toibin has made us sympathize with people who do terrible, unthinkable things
Boston Globe
In Toibin's careful hands, the story of Clytemnestra, who avenges her daughter after her husband Agamemnon sacrifices her to secure safe passage from Troy, is told with such a vivid grasp of the emotional pulse that even those who know the story well will be transfixed.
Claire Allfree
Daily Mail
An extraordinarily sympathetic and intimate portrait
Literary Review
Colm Toibin turns Greek Myths into flesh and blood..The writing is characteristically elegant, spare and subtle. ..The scenes between Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus darkly sexy
The Times
The book has a controlled hushed quality, like that of a Morandi still life, which only serves to heighten the terror and pity of the tale
John Banville A devastatingly human story...savage, sordid and hauntingly believable
Guardian
Considerable Game of Thrones appeal...instead of cheap narrative tricks and resolutions we're left with images of desolation and thwarted love
Financial Times
Brilliant retelling of a Greek Tragedy... This is a novel that is a celebration of what novels can do.
Alex Preston
Observer
A gorgeous stylist, Toibin captures the subtle flutterings of consciousness better than any writer alive . . . Never before has Toibin demonstrated such range, not just in tone but in action. He creates the arresting, hushed scenes for which he's so well known just as effectively as he whips up murders that compete, pint for spilled pint, with those immortal Greek playwrights
Washington Post
A giant amongst storytellers, Toibin has thrown down the gauntlet with his latest novel . . . And it is a masterpiece
Edith Hall
Daily Telegraph
Part of Toibin's success comes down to the power of his writing: an almost unfaultable combination of artful restraint and wonderfully observed detail . . . Unforgettable
Mary Beard
New York Times