Sharp as knives, mixing tongue-in-cheek bog Gothic with metaphysical flourishes and lashings of ultraviolence * * Guardian * * McCormack is one of our bravest and most innovative writers - he shoots for the stars . . . and does not fall short -- Kevin Barry Remarkable, even at the most extreme moments * * Irish Times * * Funny, fantastical tales that trample on the toes of the twentieth century itself * * New York Times * * McCormack's first collection of short stories ranges from the west of Ireland to New York to Purgatory . . . A helpless howl of protest that presages not only the end of the [twentieth] century but the end of civilisation itself * * Times Literary Supplement * *