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Reviews | |
| Grace Notes main page | Here, more powerfully than ever,
MacLaverty proves that, like Bernard Malamud before him, he ranks
as a master of haunted realism… by far his best novel yet. Tom Adair, Observer There are some writers - William Trevor is one,
Alice Munro another - who are so accurate, so subtle, that you are
hardly aware of reading them at all … MacLaverty is in the
same mould.: there are no pyrotechnics here, no conjuror's tricks.
He doesn't use his profound insight and compassion to dazzle, but
to illuminate…Grace Notes is a small masterpiece… resonant,
lovely, true. MacLaverty summons up time and place with an unerring
exactness reminiscent of Joyce's Dubliners… A magnificent portrait
of the sources and ends, wretchedness and rewards, of creativity. Grace Notes should have won the Booker Prize -
and deservedly won the Saltire - for its quiet beauty and breadth
of vision I was reminded of the way Joyce Carey so brilliantly
portrayed a painter's life in The Horse's Mouth… What a wonderful
writer [MacLaverty] is! MacLaverty's ear for dialogue is impeccable…
I have to say it. This is a marvelous book. MacLaverty brings off the remarkable feat of allowing
the reader to hear music that has not been written. It is magical…
A convincing work of art. In every sense a triumph... moving throughout
and ending triumphantly and |
