A triumph

His prose is as clear, fresh and invigorating as a starry winter night on an Aleutian mountainside, and his intriguing scenarios make his books easy to devour in a few urgent sittings

A stirring tale that isn’t as simple as it first appears.

A blue-collar parable … [The character] looks back on her life as a child looks into a tank, hoping to make sense of the world inside – a theme that Vann develops beautifully, creating a mysterious realm of the wintry American city’

Vann spins a powerful tale of guilt and resentment, steeped in the atmosphere of a bleak winter city

Brilliant … Aquarium is as rich as good poetry and as addictive as a first-class detective novel

Strangely beguiling … [Vann’s] writing echoes Faulkner’s in its feeling for the means by which children might uncannily echo their parents … he is responding to a genuine tendency that many children have, to shape the calls and responses and perceptions and stories according to their favourite animals … Aquarium offers a new direction for Vann’s writing, in which his characteristically unsparing eye for cruelty begins to consort with more lyrical voices.

A genuine departure for Vann, an authentically new direction … Its delicate, coming-of-age sensuality and bright saltwater menagerie … leaves more air and space for the reader … and it has a softer touch.

Aquarium may be elegantly written and fiercely imagined, but it is also a beautiful book

He is expert at showing the way that damaged, screwed-up adults inflict harm on children

[Vann is] such a fine craftsman.

Strange and sad and desperately readable

A kind of modern fairy tale, one laced with treachery and trials and the greatest demon of all to battle, the past ... Vann’s novels are striking, uncompromising portraits of American life; here is another exceptional example.

By pulling no punches in this explicit exploration of family, forgiveness, duty, acceptance, parent-child relationships, and what constitutes abuse, Vann has outdone himself.

A 12-year-old’s fragile world, mesmerizing innocence, and emerging adolescence are the heart of this alluring novel … Her fresh voice rings true … Since electrifying the literary world five years ago with his debut novel, Legend of a Suicide, Vann has racked up an astonishing number of international awards. This lovely, wrenching novel should add to that list.

Genuinely thought-provoking.

Vann’s deceptively simple style conceals the story’s raw emotional power.

A memorable novel about family and legacy.

Enright won the Man Booker Prize in 2007 for The Gathering and this triumphantly accomplished novel puts her in the running to do the double.

One calls this a novel but it could just as easily be a selection of short stories, each perfect of its kind… This is masterly prose… It’s a feat.

This is a rich, capacious story, buoyed by tender humour.

It’s Enright’s ability to capture with such wit and exactitude the multi-faceted, many-textured realities of her character’ lives that keeps the pages turning.

With The Forgotten Waltz in 2011…Anne Enright really found her voice. She returns to it in her new novel, The Green Road.

As the book snaps shut you almost want to applaud. That’s how good The Green Road…really is.

A beautifully observed study of motivation and memory, nuanced and funny and sad.

This is an insightful family portrait, by turns sensitive and stark, in which the challenges of modern life are tempered by moments of grace.

A piercingly beautiful collection of set pieces about the unresolved ebb and flow of family relationships.

Enright has delivered a fine work about how you can’t escape the past.

[A] wonderful book.

The novel of [Enright’s] already storied career.

With language so vibrant it practically has a pulse, Enright makes an exquisitely drawn case for the possibility of growth, love and transformation at any age.

No-one quite matches Enright for her quality of writing, her deftness of insight.

This is a captivating, spellbinding evocation of how your nearest and not-so-dearest can wreak emotional havoc.

Glitteringly good.

The Green Road has been receiving glowing reviews and it's easy to see why. The story, set over four decades, gives us deep insights into the five main characters, all of whom tell us something about ourselves as Irish people, and all of whom you are sorry to leave as a reader.

Enright is the most extraordinary writer – her style is simple and honest, no gimmicks, just straight to the heart.

A powerful evocation of leaving and returning home.

Masterful.

Watch out for it come Man Booker time.

Enright captures beautifully the tensions of…forced festive gatherings, the sibling rivalry and the maternal melancholy of a woman who does not understand her feelings towards her own children.

Richly and sensuously realised, it’s vivid with the particularity of places and people and bruisingly intelligent.

Enright shows real insight and perception when it comes to family relationships. It’s a well-structured and well-paced narrative.

Written with raw and brutal honesty, this is one to savour.

Enright’s writing is sharp and lucid and full of beautiful phrases and descriptions.

I love Enright’s style and the spidering out of the siblings’ lives.

There is beauty and darkness, hypocrisy and humility; it wouldn’t be an Irish novel without them.

The Green Road, about one Irish family, confronts all that is essential: love, death, mothers and our own flawed selves. It is written with a kind of tenderness, beauty and insight that transmogrifies humdrum experience into the epiphanic and back again.

Blisteringly funny and keenly perceptive.

Deeply affecting, crackling with wit, and consistently magnificent.

A globe-trotting, kaleidoscopic portrait of Irish siblings and their difficult mother.

A magnificent novel about family and belonging told in stark yet sparkling prose.

A fierce, funny, loosely woven family saga.

[A] darkly glinting novel of family life.

A bravura example of shifting voices and perspectives, all of which benefit from Enright’s splendid prose and careful restraint.

Enright dissects [her character’s] foibles with warmth, wit and a bracing lack of sentimentality.

A book you don’t put down until it is finished, dragging you right into the heart of another Irish family as only Anne Enright can.

A family saga, beginning with intense and beautifully detailed character studies.

I... enjoyed The Green Road for the dialogue, the clever narrative structure, and the gnarled, contemporary sense of family values.

I could not put it down. Chapter two is a masterpiece.

Stylish prose that charts the fortunes and misfortunes of this family over a period of 25 years.

In this brilliant, captivating novel, the poised, impossible and always disappointed matriarch Rosaleen Madigan makes life difficult for her children at a Christmas gathering.

Few Novelists pick apart domestic relationships with the poetry and precision of Anne Enright.

Sharp yet oh so subtle storytelling […] this is an author at the height of her formidable powers.

An exquisitely written portrait of a family, and a country, on the cusp of enormous change.

Exquisitely written and hugely enjoyable.

A brilliant approach to the sadness of a disconnected family, who are like satellites out of sync.

Enright’s virtuosic tale of an Irish family- the Madigans- across continents and decades withholds closure but doesn’t skimp on pleasure

A compelling novel, full of astute observations, beautifully written, sometimes stark and other times aching with longing

The sweep of the book and Anne Enright's way fo pulling this global migratuon story together with such energy and detail puts her in somewhere beside Toni Morrison

Heart-wrenching novel… The surgical precision of Enright’s writing makes you feel that she can, in Wordsworth’s words, “see into the life of things”. There is a singing simplicity to it that tugs at your heart…A masterly work.

Beautifully observed. Enright is a great writer.

Bold and brilliant.

Incredible… I’m totally captivated.

An evocative story about family ties and belonging.

A brilliant read.

A story of fracture and family, selfishness and compassion.

Sharply funny portrait of an Irish family meeting for a final Christmas.

Within pages I was wrapped in the warmth of Enright’s prose… This is a beautiful book… Enright is unquestionably a fantastic writer who, for me with this novel, conjured up the world of a family with all its highs and lows that felt like they might be having this reunion down the end of your road… Enright does two of my favourite things in fiction. She makes the ordinary, and everything we take for granted, seem extra ordinary. She also gives voices to those who have not been able to share their tales… The writing is stunning.

An evocative story about family ties and belonging. Anne Enright is deservedly a well-respected writer.

Enright's novels are fantastically well-crafted, eloquent and funny… Each character is beautifully realized… She finds unexpected adjectives, brilliantly exact description, the spot-on emotion. Her writing is lyrical but always unsentimental. There is pleasure in reading every paragraph, and an enormous wisdom throughout the pages.

Truly wonderful… The dialogue is particularly brilliant… It completely envelops you in the story and will leave you wanting more.

Wonderful… The dialogue is particularly brilliant, capturing all the barbed snappiness of dinner with siblings.

I fell headfirst into the beautifully written prose of this novel, so authentic and charming in its telling of one Irish family over more than two decades. Each vibrant character gets a turn in almost short stories of their own that feel almost like entities in their own right. I adored it.

A resonant, masterly work.

[An] exceptional novel.

This is a flawless book, it’s utterly flawless… It has just touched so many other readers. This book is heartbreaking… A beautiful examination of unhappy families… The power of Anne’s writing is you all see a reflection of your own family…it’s tender and it’s beautiful and deserves to be widely read.

Enright is undoubtedly one of our most prominent novelists