Kevin Barry Press Reviews
A blackly comic journey into the abyss . . . Beautifully written . . . Barry is a clarvoyant narrator of the male psyche and a consistent lyrical visionary . . . What distinguishes this book beyond its humour, terror and beauty of description is its moral perception . . . It is a plunging spiritual immersion into the parlous souls of wrongful men -- Alan Warner -Guardian
I devoured Night Boat to Tangier. I loved the potent truth of it all, drenched in damage and romance. The Barry turn of phrase is a true wonder of this world -- MAX PORTER
It's a Kevin Barry novel, so the brilliance is expected; everything else is a brilliant surprise -- RODDY DOYLE
The novel 2019 has been waiting for - a masterpiece delivered by a glittering talent at the peak of his powers. It leaves the rest of the class looking somewhat underpowered and unambitious, perhaps even a bit shop-worn . . . If Beatlebone was his breakout work, Night Boat to Tangier should cement the Irishman's place among the literary elite - Big Issue
If prose were gold and diamonds there'd be thousands of hell-bent prospectors heading for the Black Hills of Kevin Barry's glistening, sparkling novel -- SEBASTIAN BARRY
Barry is riding the waves with Night Boat to Tangier . . . Reminiscent of Waiting for Godot - The Times
Brilliantly funny and terrifying at once, I was completely lost inside its dark craziness. Barry blends glorious voluptuous prose with entrancing storytelling -- TESSA HADLEY
Captures male friendship with rare brilliance . . . The pair's vaudevillian patter, dancing back and forth with an irrepressibly buoyant Irish rhythm, reminds you of Didi and Gogo in Beckett's Waiting for Godot, while their gleefully ominous threats of violence bristle off the page in a way that recalls Harold Pinter or Martin McDonagh . . . Startlingly good - Independent
Kevin Barry is still young, but in this novel he has found a deep and aged maturity; all the recognisable Barry phraseology and wit is still there, but there's also now a lovely melancholic kindness. Perhaps even a sentimentality, in the best sense of that word. Kevin Barry loves you; the least you can do is read this wonder of a novel -- JON McGREGOR
In this latest novel, the Irish writer has almost invented a new genre, a fascinating hybrid of poetry, prose and drama . . . Mesmeric, exquisite . . . Night Boat to Tangier draws on the terrific vernacular energy in Irish English that is animating the best of Irish writing at present . . . This is a remarkably achieved novel which shows a writer in full command of the possibilities of the form - Irish Times
Lyrical, elegiac, taut and strange -- IAN RANKIN
Barry tells his grim story in Beckettian flashes of poetry . . . The relationship between Maurice and Charlie drives this often hilarious novel -- Kate Saunders - The Times
Lines that make me want to punch the air like I'm singing the final song from an 80s power ballad . . . Night Boat to Tangier suggests the past comes in waves, relentlessly, always different and yet always the same, and all we can put against it are the shifting sands of our present self - Herald
Infused with a uniquely Irish mixture of melancholy and myth, and written in a prose rich with the cadences of poetry, Barry's fifth work of fiction is witty, gritty and wise; it offers a sense of what it means to be fallible, to be human and to love. Sublime - Irish Mail on Sunday
Kevin Barry is one of the most original, daring, and seriously funny writers ever to come out of Ireland. I'd walk a hundred miles for a new Barry book and I would make the happy journey home, laughing -- COLUM McCANN
Stunning. One of the most affecting love stories I have ever come across -- MIKE McCORMACK
A bloody mighty novel. It's audacious, but also it's Kevin Barry at his most tender. The novel carries a beautiful, mournful undertow to it, which is particularly affecting in a book so heavy with old myth and new poetry. May he keep twisting literature forever -- LISA McINERNEY
Barry writes with real exuberance - Sunday Times
