"[Barry writes] in language of surpassing beauty. . . . It is like a song, with all the pulse of the Irish language, a song sung liltingly and plaintively from the top of Ben Bulben into the airy night." --Dinitia Smith, The New York Times
"Barry recounts all this in prose of often startling beauty. Just as he describes people stopping in the street to look at Roseanne, so I often found myself stopping to look at the sentences he gave her, wanting to pause and copy them down." --Margot Livesey, The Boston Globe
"Luminous and lyrical."--O, The Oprah Magazine
"A great novel about a ninety-nine-year-old woman...trying to understand the truth of her life...Along the way are some of the most beautifully formed prose passages I have ever read." --Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization
"Written in captivating, lyrical prose, Barry's novel is both a sparkling literary puzzle and a stark cautionary tale of corrupted power." --Publishers Weekly
"Part of Barry's artistry is the sheer poetry of his prose, now heart-stoppingly lyrical, now heart-poundingly thrilling. An unforgettable portrait of mid-twentieth-century Ireland." --Booklist
"It is a poignant story of the horrors and hypocrisies of rural Ireland, the cruelties of civil war, and the pernicious influence of the priesthood. Roseanne is a vivid and engaging protagonist, and Barry makes rich use of the circumlocutions of his native tongue." --The Daily Mail (London)
"Dark, awkward, and exceptionally finely written."--The Telegraph (London)
"In this book, the worlds each character builds are significantly, tantalizingly estranged from each other. The novel's delight lies in the way in which the two tales--and, eventually the two lives--begin to coalesce, to the utter surprise of both the characters and the reader."
--The Economist
