Glister

In the end we are left with the resonance of a book whose centre is nowhere but whose circumference is extraordinarily large

Financial Times

Nobody does eerie quite like John Burnside... exquisite and haunting..... the violence in Glister is shot through with an awful grace...As with all of Burnside's work - poetry, novels and memoir - there is a vision of something inexplicable at the heart of things. I doubt I will read a more unsettling and memorable book this year

Scotland on Sunday

Darkly compelling murder mystery., the novel is also a densely layered engagement with questions of politics, spirituality, environmentalism and meta fiction. It is an incredible book; its echoes sound long after the end has been reached

Big Issue

Baffling, haunting, terrifying, moving, and compulsively readable

Niall Griffiths, Daily Telegraph

A novel that pierces the heart of evil... Consume it at night. Turn out the lights and watch the walls glow

Scotsman

An intersection between horror story, morality tale, feigned memoir and ecological satire

Times Literary Supplement

Tackles the question of what lies beyond with wit and subtlety

Herald

The atmosphere of Glister is sustained by Burnside's distinctive and widely praised prose style, spare but ruminative, full of ideas and unusual formulations

Irish Times

Burnside burns most brilliantly when he allows himself free rein to become a prophet of the natural sublime... The world of this chilling novel is steeped in a nature so finely drawn that it aches with its pulsing, crippled mortality

Independent

Puts him in the class of Hardy and Lawrence

The Times

The unrelenting evocation of toxicity is remarkable

Guardian

a taut, mystical thriller and a thoughtful meditation on humanity

Philip Womack, Daily Telegraph

Burnside's story uses suggestion and ambiguity rather than explicit statement, but has the power that comes from leaving plenty of space in which the reader's imagination can go to work

Nick Rennison, Sunday Times

remarkable, genre-defying...Glister is a remarkable book...a fusion of styles and genres, and it succeeds magnificently on those terms...powerfully imagines and beautifully written...A haunting tale, not as depressing as you might expect, and highly recommended

Simon Appleby, www.bookgeeks.co.uk

Writing 'this dreamy melange of gritty urbanism with poetic crime puzzler, will appeal to the right reader very highly

The Book Bag

A dark fable

Colin Waters, Sunday Herald

Burnside's writing conveys an almost palpable thrill of discovery, a delight in the play of his imagination over this bleak terrain, an irrepressible joy in cultivating metaphor after metaphor and seeing them all, improbably, bloom...The emotion this brilliant and disturbing novel leaves you with is like the spooked feeling Leonard experiences...It takes your breath away, but you don't know if that comes from awe or terror. The Glister" is that kind of story. It's terrifying, and it feels like a gift.

Terrence Rafferty, www.nytimes.com

I'm a year late (quite punctual, for me) in recommending John Burnside's austerely poetic novel

David Mitchell, Guardian