This is How: the reviews (and an extract!)
M.J. Hyland’s latest novel This is How is really making an impact on the literary scene, with fantastic reviews coming in all the time. Here are some of Canongate’s favourites.
‘a novel of extraordinary power…Hyland tells her story in a supercharged present tense, tremblingly aware of physical detail. … The reader enters fully into the tension of Patrick’s inner self, his claustrophobic sense of being subject to the physical world yet isolated from its meaning. .. Bleak yet moving, mercilessly dispassionate yet shot through with kindness and wit, it is a profound achievement.’
Justine Jordan, Guardian (27/06/09)
‘From the first pages the laconic first-person narrative is full of tension. … Hyland’s focus is steady, her detail relentless. The novel becomes deeply moving, not because there is any special pleading for Oxtoby but because it stays with a devastated man in all his weakness. … This is an expertly paced, gripping novel that doesn’t falter and never compromises its emotional truth.’
Helen Dunmore, The Times (04/07/09)
‘Darkly, sparsely, and with sustained intensity, Hyland constructs the montage of a killer. … a dash of Camus’s Meursault is added to the pathology. … She writes intelligently about her subject’s growing institutionalization, his bafflement growing into boredom then safety as Patrick gradually finds a kind of happiness inside. … From within these shady borderlands Hyland has produced a memorable study.’
Toby Lichtig, Times Literary Supplement (10/07/09)
‘a vividly imagined novel. … Every word of Hyland’s narrative – observed with the bright, deranged precision of a Richard Dadd painting – resonates with Patrick’s tragic awareness of what he lacks.’
Jane Shilling, Daily Telegraph (11/07/09)
And let’s not forget litblogger love. This is How has been getting stellar reviews on the blogs, too:
‘Hyland has created another engrossing tale of a lost soul.’
Leyla Sanai, Rock’s Back Pages
‘For the insights it offers into complicated parent/child relationships and its exploration of the connection between human marginalisation and violence, This Is How is sure to win prizes.’
Lisa Glass, Vulpes Libris
‘This first-person narration is fantastically well wrought.’
The Prufrock Review
Download an extract of This is How to sample what the critics are raving about.
