- Published: 1 March 2011
- ISBN: 9780099554998
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 224
- RRP: $26.99
The Lemon Table
- Published: 1 March 2011
- ISBN: 9780099554998
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 224
- RRP: $26.99
All [the stories] are a joy to read as Barnes glides between forms...Each story is distinct and indelible, a tribute to the form. Above all they make you think about growing old and what, if anything, can be done about it.
Glasgow Herald
All have a photographic clarity, a psychological realism that embraces extremes of feeling...with a deliciously wry streak
Observer
Barnes's steely wit finds best expression when inhabiting the anguished and angry... Their brilliance rather plays upon our petty furies and failures, embellishing them with self-deprecatory wryness...entrancing and curiously cheering
New Statesman
Masterly...his best stories have a strong air of Maupassant about them...extraordinarily effective...a compelling series of vignettes of old age, executed with great skill
Daily Telegraph
Splendid, beautiful...reads like Turgenev
Spectator
Admirably unsweetened by saccharine sentimentality...exhilaratingly crisp, crystallised by Barnes's wintry intelligence... The clean, acidic accuracy of Barnes's writing is supremely enjoyable
Sunday Telegraph
Taken together, these tales present a powerful account of the snatched joys and encumbrances of decrepitude in well-turned prose that brings wit, charm and gravity to its theme
Financial Times