Critical Praise

“Like the best historical fiction writers, Unsworth tells his story while also fleshing out the backdrop with details that ground us in the moment.”

——David Anthony Durham, Washington Post Book World

“Barry Unsworth’s extraordinary skill – here and in his other novels – is somehow to kick away that [authorial] infrastructure so that the story floats free, lavishly equipped, bearing witness to time and place, but apparently the product of some uncanny insight.”