'Toltz’s debut is virtuosic smart-arsery with brains, balls and a bittersweet heart. As unique and unlikely as a flying zebra, mere review won’t do this justice. Stupendous.'
MEN’S STYLE
'Brilliantly funny… every sentence is a quotable aprhorism clothed in light-hearted observations about human behaviour. A 700-page modern classic'
COURIER MAIL
'A witty 700-page romp which has cult written all over it'
THE BULLETIN
'comical, philosophical, picaresque, hugely enjoyable'
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
'Hardened critics have been spotted reading proof copies while walking down the street, unable to prise themselves away'
AUSTRALIAN LITERARY REVIEW
'Littered with razor-sharp one-liners and observations. Undeniably Australian… but not in the way to which we've become accustomed'
THE BIG ISSUE
'There is something for everyone in this kaleidoscope of a novel … A wonderful read'
CANBERRA TIMES
'A Fraction of the Whole soars with glorious abandon … A story crammed with vigour, insight and bravado, and a reminder that truly great writing must be audacious and visionary, not merely well crafted'
ADELAIDE ADVERTISER
'Exhilarating. Don’t be daunted by the length of the book – it never flags and at no stage feels overwritten … Toltz is a magnificently talented writer who has created a full cast of utterly compelling characters, every one of them. A gloriously absorbing, preposterous and funny excursion to the brink of madness and the meaning of life.'
SUNDAY MAIL BRISBANE/SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
'700 pages of crackling-wit prose'
GQ AUSTRALIA
'Bursting with ideas and filled with lasting images. An epic work of imagination'
HERALD SUN
'It is unlike any other Australian novel – indeed, unlike any novel – I can think of … I loved it'
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
'A prodigious new talent'
TIME OUT SYDNEY
'I love the wonderfully whacky philosophising and the amazing way this novel fits together … The novel is ridiculous and true, far-fetched and convincing, alienating and addictive'
THE AUSTRALIAN
'[A] hilarious, sneaky smart first novel… as big and rangy as Australia … one rampaging and irresistible debut'
BOOKLIST
'Comic drive and Toltz's far-out imagination carry the epic story … Comparisons to Special Topics in Calamity Physics are likely, but this nutty tour de force has a more tender, more worldly spin.'
PUBLISHERS’ WEEKLY
'That rarest of long books – utterly worth it. The year is two months old. But this is the book of a two-month-old year. It may well carry the whole thing.'
ESQUIRE
'riotously funny first novel by Australian Steve Toltz that is harder to ignore than a crate of puppies, twice as playful and just about as messy'
WALL ST JOURNAL
'I loved the wild ride. A Fraction of the Whole soars like a rocket.'
LA TIMES
'While there is a narrative thread, what Toltz has done masterfully is have his way with every aspect of modern life… with a laser wit, a fine turn of phrase and a devastatingly funny outlook on everything human'
SEATTLE TIMES
'Australian Toltz’s invention is as breathtaking as the speed of his narrative in a book that seems to have had all the boring parts snipped … There is wit on every page'
CHICAGO SUN TIMES
'Rousing and sprawling debut'
USA TODAY
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'No one on the shortlist could hope to match the energy, vigour and range of Steve Toltz's hilarious, though deeply tragic, A Fraction of the Whole. Here is the liveliest Booker voice since Vernon God Little.'
IRISH TIMES
'Steve Toltz's debut novel … (is) a fat book but very light on its feet, skipping from anecdote, to rant, to reflection, like a stone skimming across a pond … it is brilliant.'
THE GUARDIAN
'Exuberant, utterly brilliant first novel. Booker, anyone?’
THE TIMES
'Toltz brings all the energy and assurance of a young Peter Carey to this burlesque, bravura performance.’
IRISH TIMES
‘A grand achievement and the debut of a great comic talent … go away and read it.’
SUNDAY TIMES
'What's more, it stands above the vast majority of debut novels because it seems so marvelously sure of itself and what it should be … Toltz's fizzing, acid prose is also capable of a kind of broken, lyrical beauty.’
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
‘Dazzling … A teeming, hilarious and constantly inventive trawl through the ills and graces of modern society. With a writing style so compelling it recalls a softer-boiled Raymond Chandler and a still-funny Woody Allen, Toltz has delivered a book so compulsive you'll even forgive him for the cramps in your arms.’
WORD MAGAZINE
‘Australian writer Steve Toltz's debut novel is a sprawling, 700-page epic taking in psychology, philosophy, soap opera, adolescence, love and most of all, the difficulty of staying true to oneself … his chatty, knowing and breezy tone is ultimately the real success.’
METRO
‘sparkling comic writing … It gives off the unmistakable whiff of a book that might just contain the secret of life.'
THE INDEPENDENT
'Steve Toltz's huge, hugely shaggy story has considerable wit and humanity.'
THE DAILY MAIL
'With tinges of magical realism and buckets of misanthropic humour it's a clever and funny debut.'
THE OBSERVER
'A Fraction of the Whole belongs to a neglected sub-genre: serious fiction that refuses to take itself seriously. A ballsy, beautifully idiosyncratic epic, it asks dizzying primal questions about mortality, belief and the shadowy, unmapped alleyways of human thought - and Toltz manages his metaphysics like a master surfer riding a colossal wave.'
SUNDAY BUSINESS POST
'A Fraction of the Whole has the kind of opening sentence I would defy any reader to stop at; and it's a rarely affirming first novel that makes you think a sequel wouldn't be a bad thing.'
SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY
'If first novels were sandwiches, Steve Toltz's would be a juicy, swaggering doorstop of a sarnie, overflowing with eccentrically combined but delicious ingredients … Toltz is a superb phrase-maker with an acute eye for humanity's shortfalls. Armed with this he comments on society in ways that are blisteringly funny. Preposterous, absorbing, intelligent and ranting, despite its huge length the book never flags.'
THE BIG ISSUE
'A hilarious novel well worth the four years its author invested in its creation.'
JEWISH CHRONICLE |
