Jennifer Clement's new novel is appallingly timely ... Ms Clement creates a weird poetry of murderous force. Chekhov’s narrative principle—that a gun hung on the wall in the first act must eventually go off—has become a metaphorical rule of storytelling. To reflect American reality, Ms Clement puts a gun on every wall in every room

A neon fairytale... written in the punchy, exaggerated style of a graphic novel, it’s surprisingly enjoyable

Clement's book is charged with gut-punch sentences and indelible images, but [the] second act is particularly searing ... Propelled to its inevitable denouement less by plot than by the intensity of its author's prose and singular vision, this is an uncompromising snapshot of America's ills

Clement's spare, often oblique style makes this book feel like a great lost murder ballad by the likes of Johnny Cash or Nick Cave ... excellent at describing the intensity of the love between a mother and child within a claustrophobic environment, and the disruption that a hostile male presence causes to this bond ... One of those rare books that the reader might wish to be a few dozen pages longer, to spend more time in this fully realised world

Haunting ... poetic ... Full of sorrow and aching sweetness, “Gun Love” provides a glimpse of people who dwell every day knee deep in the toxic waste of our gun culture. They may be America’s forgotten children, but after reading this novel, you are not likely to forget them

Though this world is harrowing, it's also fortified with ample wit and tenderness. The sweet sorrow of doomed maternal love is at the novel's thrumming center, as is the author's cockeyed affection for the region. "In our part of Florida everything was puzzled," Pearl tells us. Gun Love potently illuminates this puzzled land, and the complicated fates of those who dwell in the pockets visitors won't find on a map

Offer[s] a glimpse of what a poetics of gun violence might look like… In this book, the machinery of violence purchases a sense of belonging—of thrilling, life-or-death simplicity

The writing is crisp and the images are sharp

It’s been a long time since I’ve been so mesmerized with a novel’s each next sentence. Jennifer Clement is one of our most inventive novelists. There’s no telling what she’ll see. Whatever it is, it’s something right in front of us, but—here is the magic trick—something we have never before seen. Gun Love is an amazement: fierce, inventive, tender

Through a memorable coming-of-age story set in America’s margins, Clement makes all of these things true at once: A gun is a valentine, a secret-bearer, a penitent, a world destroyer, an exposed belly, an insurance policy, a sudden act of God

Clement is a brilliant stylist... her metaphors and similes are superb; and together they create a haunting atmosphere ... Always evocative, it is an unforgettable knockout not to be missed

Pearl’s story takes place in a world both strange and familiar, in the fairy tale of her mother’s imagination and in an America pockmarked by gun violence and poverty ... Clement’s quiet tragedy is moving, unsettling, and filled with characters who will haunt you long after the story ends

Clement’s affecting and memorable novel is also an incisive social commentary that will give readers much to ponder

Clement turns her hypnotic pen to the story of America’s love affair with guns

Taut, spare, musical, metaphor-laden, haunting, and every so often it hits you so hard in the gut that you gasp

A master of figurative language

The inventiveness and charm of Clement’s narrative voice are such that Gun Love never stops being a pleasure to read. Every paragraph is nutty and passionate and glamorous

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