Karoo has all the ingredients of a truly great novel. Its plot has the pathos of a Greek tragedy and enough twists and turns to satisfy the most avid Raymond Chandler fan. The characters come alive as soon as they appear on the page. Fantastic

Utterly wonderful... This novel does supremely what novels were invented to do - it confronts the most unbearable sadness with a comic exhilaration that makes you almost pleased that life is tragic

Mordantly funny, unexpectedly moving and brutally honest about the business of making movies

Fascinating. A real satiric invention, loaded with wise outrage

Terrific. Nakedly honest, a tour de force of self-destruction. As Saul spirals into free-fall we're with him all the way, because he's so furiously funny

In this second novel Steve Tesich has created an anti-hero as appealing as any dreamt up by Philip Roth or Saul Bellow

Scathing, hilarious and glorious

Karoo is a very good and very funny novel of the old-fashioned American kind, the tragi-comic story - familiar from Philip Roth and JP Donleavy - of a selfish but vulnerable and oddly lovable monster whose own shortcomings don't disqualify him from saying some sharp things about the hypocrisies of the allegedly better-balanced types who despise him

Adulterous alcoholic and pathological liar, it is, nevertheless, hard not to love Karoo, whose sardonic observations are both poignant and extremely funny. This is comic writing at its best. Clever, well crafted and proof that Tesich was master of the medium

Brilliantly funny in its early chapters, but also very wise, the virtuosic irony turns to bitterness as a tragic story develops. Tesich died just after completing this marvellous, heart-felt valediction.

A sad novel with a jaunty, upbeat tone that disguises the tragedy of Tesich's magnetic characters

[A] bold and deeply wise collection

Startlingly, blazingly original.

[A] riveting collection of short stories ... darkly imagined, slightly surreal

Exhilarating ... His mastery of setting simply wowed me.

Marked by the conflicts of heart and mind, and the exuberant quality of its compassionate prose.

Compulsively readable ... Johnson serves up six sinewy stories that shock and surprise.

A rare combination of inventiveness, intellectual pyrotechnics and emotional sophistication ... these stories are treasures.

Bittersweet, elegant, full of ward-won wisdom: this is no ordinary book either.

Hefty and memorable ...the stories provide one of the truest satisfactions of reading: the opportunity to sing into worlds we otherwise know little or nothing about.

Terrific. Shows exactly why Johnson is rated as one of the hottest writers of his generation.

The perfect antidote to Trump.

This book is a compelling study of the relationship between artist and spectator, and how suffering feeds into art, and he’s made of it a bravura performance… Extraordinary.

A haunting, intense and Man Booker International prize-winning novel from a great writer.

Incredibly fast paced, and the dialogue comes at you like a machine gun… It is powerful in its own right.

Abrasive, unexpected and eventually heartbreaking, it is a masterclass in characterisation and structure, and it beat off some exceptionally strong competition to win the prize… A Horse Walks into a Bar is quite unlike any other Grossman book except in one important respect: it’s another masterpiece.

Excellent.

Pitch-perfect black comedy