- Published: 1 August 2013
- ISBN: 9780857981639
- Imprint: Random House Australia
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 336
The Mannequin Makers
- Published: 1 August 2013
- ISBN: 9780857981639
- Imprint: Random House Australia
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 336
In his debut novel, the New Zealand writer Craig Cliff adds to the canon, but with such ambition, creativity and sheer energy that he shows there’s still something new to say about a national narrative that can seem, at times, to hold no surprises.
New York Times Review of Books
[The Mannequin Makers] is a strikingly vivid tale full of startling yet believable twists anchored by the compassionate portrayal of lives overrun with obsession and the drive for perfection. It is an original and gripping read, a rich book by an accomplished writer.
Los Angeles Review of Books
Cliff altogether offers a quirky voice that falls outside of much American commercial fiction. This esotericism, along with determined prose, clever bits of timeless social critique, and an eye for setting, makes The Mannequin Makers a pleasurable read.
Chicago Review of Books
At times moving, often entertaining and exuberantly told.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
New Zealander Cliff makes a stunning American debut with a story about obsession gone horribly wrong. . . . This is a spellbinding and original tale, rife with perilous journeys, fascinating historical detail, and memorable characters.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
In Craig Cliff’s world everything breathes . . . He dresses loneliness in its most dramatic garb, lacing it with vice, virtue, and dispassion, and casting it all in the gnawing shadow of grief: for lost loved ones, for rash decisions, for the isolation that comes with victimhood.
Arkansas International
A grim and glorious meditation on the cruelty of fate.
Kirkus
Craig Cliff has brought turn-of-the-century Australia and New Zealand entirely to life in his haunting novel. With shades of Herman Melville and Richard Flanagan, it is a story of dark obsessions and family entanglements that will pull you in like a strong undertow. There are shipwrecks and deserted islands and uncanny illusions. But it’s Cliff’s writing about wood carving and the New Zealand landscape that lends the novel its beautiful lyricism.
Eowyn Ivey, author of To the Bright Edge of the World