Wieringa has raised the bar yet again. Compared to his earlier work, the novel’s structure is tighter and more focused and the chapters are as neatly trimmed as box hedges. This is a monumental novel that showcases both intelligence, discipline and originality (‘he had the heart of a whale’) and Wieringa’s almost passionate drive for perfection. His vast scope has become an indisputable trademark. The Netherlands is too small for Wieringa. – de Volkskrant

Structurally sound and highly intelligent. Wieringa will make you think and keep you reading eagerly to the final page. – Claire Lowdon, Times Literary Supplement

Tommy Wieringa can do poetry ... but that's not what makes this book such a bewitching delight. What Wieringa does best is people; with a few cherry-picked words he creates a townful of wholly believable, empathetic characters, each subtly leaking their own past, so that within a few pages the reader is surrounded by voices, in turns funny, bitter, hopeful, melancholy, gleefully mercenary and tenderly benign ... I can't recommend this profound, thoughtful, truthful book enough. – Jane Graham, Big Issue