I began Under the Frog on a crowded double decker in a London traffic jam...and soon found myself laughing like an idiot... It is a triumph...painfully moving, it is also uproariously funny

A remarkable first novel

Original and impressive... Sharp, funny and moving

A quite wonderful book... He takes a serious subject....and is seriously funny about it...the result is plausible, insolent, sophisticated and hungry... Glorious!

A funny, slangy, tragic, impeccably researched romp... A richly convincing line-up of skivers, copulators, opportunists and, above all, survivors in the face of oppression

A story that is startlingly strange, in the best sense-pitch-perfect prose

This first novel is undeniably rich: a tale woven around the importance of faith, whether in imaginary friends or undiscovered treasures, and the strength of family

The year's most impressive debut

Like Donna Tartt’s "The Secret History" or a good film noir . . . Jane’s low-key narration has just the right tone to keep readers hooked

The strength of 'The Lake of Dead Languages' is a silken prose that lures the reader into Goodman’s . . . story of murder, suicide . . . revenge, and madness

Part suspense, part coming-of-age, and all-enthralling . . . A book that needs the roar of a fire to ward off its psychic chill