The lasting feeling that his work leaves is one of happiness; not of course in the sense that it excludes suffering, but because, in it, nothing is rejected, resented or regretted

Cocteau's tale of young beauties whose isolation leads them towards premature decay...a genuine tragedy

The novel Les Enfants Terrible has become a rite of passage in every French childhood

If La Belle et la Bête his romance, then Les Enfants Terribles is his tragedy. Like the others, it articulates Cocteau's belief in the power of imagination to transform the ordinary world into a world of magic

Cocteau never meant his work to pass as anyone else's, and even when it is imitative it bears a maker's mark that would disqualify any forger: the stamp of a master of paradox and aesthetic epigram, who supplied a unique - and enduring - connection between the classic and the new

What stands out...is Oz's strident lyricism

So full of surprises that even to start describing it you have to give a few away...compelling

A novel of scintillating brilliance... a modern myth of good and evil... Gripping

A dissection of the emotional fissures that tear families apart

The novel...is thoughtful and beautifully written, examining lost lives, chances and choices

A sort of historical treatise follows, one that is devoid of the kind of colourful details which abound in stereotypical lottery daydreams, but which nevertheless endears the reader to Andy and his cause, and sets up an enticing conclusion'