Molly Fox's Birthday

"Deirdre Madden's prose is crystalline, understated, apparently effortless yet artfully suitable. She really does not remind me of anybody I've read before. And yet, like other formidable writers--Mavis Gallant, Margaret Atwood and Elizabeth Bowen come to mind--she is after something intrinsic and riddling but essential in us all, something that probably doesn't exist until we've read every word this book contains. It is ambitious work. Madden is a first-rate novelist." --Richard Ford

"A novel of great subtlety, beauty and strength. Madden is one of our finest writers." --Anne Enright

"It is almost impossible not to be moved." --The Scotsman

"Equipped with an almost celestial compassion. Madden is the constant genius of Irish Letters." --Sebastian Barry

"Written with skill, sympathy, and flair, establishes Madden further as one of the most important Irish novelists." --Colm Toibin, Best Books of the Year, Sunday Business Post (Ireland)

"Resembles a box in which keepsakes have been carefully packed away: over the course of a day, the significant memories of three lives are taken out and examined, giving rise to a satisfying tension between the deceptive simplicity of the setup and the subtle impacts of each successive 'reveal'. . . .[an] elegant novel of contained power." --The Guardian (UK)

"This is a novel about identity and it poses meaningful questions about the presentation of self and perhaps, the necessity of falsehood. . . . Zestful and lyrical writing." --Penny Perrick, The Times (London)