“This book is one of the most brilliant achievements of Australian literature – probably the most brilliant. But it has had a hard life.”

“The opening chapter, where Frank watches his wife star in an amateur performance of The Petrified Forest, is a masterpiece of sustained disappointment.”

“One is skeptical about literary prizes. And yet – confess to it, please - one likes literary prizes, as well.”

“If some insult-proof prize judges, fearless and uncowed, had been around to defend Lawrence in 1915, would his future - and that of the English novel - have changed much?”

“Darkly, laugh-out-loud funny, page-turningly suspenseful and quite simply the work of a novelist at the top of their game both intellectually and emotionally.”

“I felt a stab of pure, unadulterated envy.”

“Proof, if it were needed, that a funny book can also be a work of art.”

“I’m going to go ahead and say it: Augustus is a better novel than Stoner. “

“The masterly prose is hypnotic and its neutral meditative quality makes Stoner a very powerful reading experience”

“We should know Green’s name as we do Chekhov’s, or Spark’s, or Stevenson’s”