"What [Barbara Gowdy] does, with bravery and compassion, is explore the immense impact that obsessive love can have on innocent--and not-so-innocent--people."--People
"Rich in characters . . . Terror and empathy move in lockstep through the final pages of this deeply perceptive novel."--O, The Oprah Magazine
"The reader is gripped by the characters and Gowdy's technical sophistication."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Although she maintains a palpable level of tension . . . [Gowdy] offers a more nuanced psychological focus on a quartet whose relations to one another are both oddly distant and profoundly intimate."--Los Angeles Times
"Deftly and with the illusion of innocence, [Gowdy] renders the alien native. Hers is a peacemaking genius, unique in its talent for the transition of strangeness to second nature, repulsiveness to sorrow, and insane to ordinary."--Lydia Millet,
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
"A nail-biting story told with wonderful quirkiness."--Lionel Shriver,
Daily Telegraph (UK)
"Harrowing and compelling."--
Chicago Tribune"A page-turner that finds tension not in the obvious question (Will Rachel be rescued?), but in more personal ones."--
The New York Times
