Critical Praise

“The thematic links between the modern story and WUTHERING HEIGHTS only become clear over time, and --- even then --- they’re too rich and subtle to work as simple allegory. Empire and race are among Phillips’s concerns, but he also offers heartbreaking depictions of alienation and the fragility of human relationships…Gorgeously crafted and emotionally shattering.”

—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“With uncanny intimacy, eloquence, and compassion, Caryl Phillips stitches together past and present, the world of classic English literature and of hardscrabble contemporary English life, more movingly than ever before, speaking through every one of his characters with humbling depth and understanding. The simple, startling result is that after THE LOST CHILD, English literature looks richer, more mysterious and more human.”

—Pico Iyer

“Caryl Phillips has found a fascinating way of writing about the elusive parts of human experience that have to do with loss, absence, yearning and the struggle of marginalized individuals to build a viable existence. Refracting the present through the past, life through literature, the sweetness and sadness of 1970s England through the austere grandeur of the Brontës’ world, he creates a highly original narrative that is both astonishing and strangely moving.”

—James Lasdun