"The Irish master." --New Yorker "One periodically rereads a [Banville] sentence just to marvel at its beauty, originality and elegance." --USA TODAY "John Banville deserves his Booker Prize." --Los Angeles Times Book Review "[Banville's] books are like baroque cathedrals, filled with elaborate passages." --Paris Review "A grand writer with a seductive style." --Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review "Banville is a master at capturing the most fleeting memory or excruciating twinge of self-awareness with riveting accuracy." --People "A brilliant stylist." --Christian Science Monitor "Represents a watershed in contemporary Irish writing.

" --Colm Tóibín "John Banville is the heir to Nabokov." --Sunday Telegraph "One of the best novelists in English." --Edmund White, Guardian "He cannot write an unpolished phrase, so we read him slowly, relishing the stream of pleasures he affords." --The Independent (UK) "The heir to Proust." --Daily Beast "A great storyteller." --Observer "Banville's ventriloquism is word-perfect." --Vulture.