“[Barnes] has not merely blurred the line between fact and fiction; he has expunged it. . . . skillfully weaving in thoughts on love, on aging, on writing fiction, on preparing for death. It’s a virtuoso performance.” —Clare McHugh, The Washington Post
“Thoughtful and dynamic.” —Jeffrey Condran, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“A culmination . . . shimmering with [Barnes’s] silky, erudite prose; beneath the suave surface is an earnest investigation into the mysterious ways of the human heart.” —Adam Begley, The Atlantic
“Slim and stark. . . Barnes’s prose is largely stripped bare. . . . . [yet] brims with wisdom reluctantly acquired. . . . His appetite for playfulness and detail, for bedrock human stuff, remains unslakable.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times Book Review
“Barnes is perhaps the great interpreter of mundane grandiosity, or grandiose mundanity. . . . Whether he’s writing fiction or nonfiction, Barnes is excellent, and always has been.” —Alex Clark, The Guardian
“Rewarding. . . . At once confidently authoritative and tentatively questioning. Barnes assumes a personal relation with his readers. . . . His voice is informal, confiding, sometimes playful. He appeals to our own experiences. . . . His vigilant attention to the world demands an answering thoughtfulness from his readers.” —Dinah Birch, Times Literary Supplement
“The writing is cerebral, but companionably so. . . . [Barnes] is the most punctilious of authors—orderly, factual, reasonable and contained. He is interested in the world and he loves digesting information in clear and presentable ways.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
“Proustian in both focus and scope, Barnes’ philosophical flights are . . . reminiscent of W. G. Sebald, but with a warmth, humanity, and humor that are distinctly his own. . . . This is a rewarding and profound exploration of the human condition from a deeply captivating writer.” —Booklist (starred review)
“Barnes explores memory, identity, and aging in this elegiacal and witty metafictional novella. . . . [and] remains in top form. Readers with a penchant for the precise prose of Ian McEwan or the collage metafiction of Sigrid Nunez will love his latest.” —Jon Jeffreyes, Library Journal (starred review)
“A revelatory meditation on love, death, and memory. . . . Barnes dives headlong into the slippery nature of memory and what one forgets through time or necessity. It’s an understated but graceful valediction by a writer whose work won’t soon be forgotten.” —Publishers Weekly
“An autofictional remembrance. . . . Questioning the merits of novel-writing as an endeavor, the way it prompts the writer to exaggerate and betray. . . . It’s clear that Barnes is writing with a certain urgency.” —Kirkus Reviews
