The master short story teller turns messy emotions into riveting tales of wounded Irish folk . . . One of the best collections you'll read this year

Sunday Times

Wild, witty stories . . . The west of Ireland teems with canny characters and vivid language . . . Darkly glimmering . . . Their language is exhilarating, its verve evoking the very best of Barry's compatriots while further carving out a territory that's all his own

Observer

These are brilliant and vivid and uproarious stories. It's a rare writer who can call a tune like Kevin Barry
LISA McINERNEY Barry often writes with sonorous wisdom . . . but as readers of his grimly hilarious novels will know, his language is just as precise when it is in the service of comedy . . . Exhilaratingly funny and poignant fables
Jake Kerridge

Sunday Telegraph

These playful, serious and beautifully crafted stories allow Barry to experiment as we need great writers to do
SARAH MOSS

Irish Times

The third short-story collection from a stylist to savour brings more exhilarating, darkly witty tales of oddballs yearning after love and enchantment in the wild west of Ireland

Guardian, 50 hottest new books everyone should read

An extraordinary writer . . . In his short stories Barry seems most fully and brilliantly himself . . . Unimprovable masterpieces . . . So rich and so flawlessly crafted - its best stories feel instantly canonical, as if we've already been reading them for years . . . The opening story is letter-perfect from its first line . . . Funny, moving, built with superior economy, this is the real thing . . . Barry remains the great romantic of contemporary Irish fiction. Like all of the most interesting artists, he gets better with every risk he takes. The courage may be his. But the rewards are all ours
Kevin Power

Irish Independent

Full of the damaged characters, menacing rural scenery and darkly comic, slantwise prose that have become his trademark . . . At each turn, Barry makes his fiction a matter of life and death

New Statesman

Optimism and sorrow anchor the stories in this collection, where relationships take unexpected turns and characters befuddle one another and themselves. Barry's writing sparkles, as ever, moving speedily between pathos and humour to great effect

New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice

Barry is wickedly funny, slyly transgressive and consistently brilliant. He is constantly turning tricks with language before upending us on the thwarted desires of his characters and the dark energy of his landscapes. And underpinning it all, the melancholy of men that is Barry's hallmark
MARY COSTELLO