Praise for The Empty Family "A perfect introduction to Tóibín and, for longtime fans, a bracing pleasure." -- The Seattle Times "Magic. haunting, evocative, sad, rich with complex humanity." -- Minneapolis Star-Tribune "Tóibín's attention to language equals the empathy he pays his thoroughly authentic characters, so summarizing their stories only threatens to blunt their exquisiteness, because half the pleasure of reading them comes from absorbing the complicated structures he weaves. He is in top form here." --San Francisco Chronicle "Love in all its guises--nostalgic, unabashedly erotic, perhaps even autobiographical--can be found in The Empty Family, including a deft reimagining of Lady Gregory's tryst with the poet Wilfred Blunt, recounted with more than one Jamesian flourish." --Vogue "Tóibín lures us into stories with characters who experience true revelation, no matter how quiet or small. With masterful restraint, he lays bare the drama of everyday life.
" --Houston Chronicle "Nine achingly beautiful stories. With The Empty Family Tóibín takes the morass of humanity and with infinite compassion distills it into art." -- The Miami Herald " The Empty Family reminds us that a short story is something altogether different: a work of art, like a painting or a beautiful song. Ernest Hemingway famously said that in fiction nine-tenths of the story should lie below the surface. Tóibín masterfully achieves this goal." --The Cleveland Plain Dealer "Tóibín generates drama and suspense without ever sacrificing the intensely lyrical writing that he has always delivered." --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "With a spare, eloquent style, Tóibín guides us through hotel lobbies and pensiones from Dublin to Barcelona. He directs our attention to estranged family members, divorcées and Muslim immigrants, catching each of them at the moment in which they are forced to reckon with their pasts.
" --Los Angeles Times "Mr. Tóibín is at his best dealing with matters of the heart and soul. A satisfying test of intellect and sympathy." --Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "On the evidence of the stories collected in The Empty Family , Colm Tóibín must be seriously considered one of today's great short story writers. Tóibín is shaping up to be the early twenty-first century's E. M. Forster." --American-Statesman "Rich with tender surprises.
Tóibín's voice is more assured with every new book he brings out." --The Economist "The work of a supreme writer who only improves." -- The Times (London) "A collection that will only further fuel Tóibín's ascent through English fiction." -- The Independent "Exquisite." -- The Daily Telegraph "Narratives of remarkable scope and variety. Tóibín describes the experiences of the young and the very old, homosexual and heterosexual, Irish and Spanish, all with equal assurance." --The Spectator "Colm Tóibín is one of the best storytellers writing today. His prose is pitch perfect, each word, each phrase carefully chosen and aptly applied.
In this collection Colm Tóibín is at his masterful best." --Toronto Sun "When Tóibín pulls a fully convincing twist on the convention, it's like witnessing a magician pull off an especially deft trick. The work of a modern master." -- The Gazette (Canada).