"House of Names works because of the empathy and depth Toibin brings to these suffering, tragically fallible characters, all destined to pass on "into the abiding shadows" -- yet vividly alive in this gripping novel."--Heller McAlpin "NPR.org"
"[An] extraordinary new novel... Drawing upon Greek tragedy as deftly as he borrowed the story of the Virgin mother in his 2013 Booker Prize finalist novel,
The Testament of Mary, Toibin has found the gaps in the myth, reimagining all as a profoundly gripping and human tale... you can see at once the marvelous writer Toibin is, and how he works best under a set of self-imposed restrictions..." --John Freeman "The Boston Globe"
"A dramatic, intimate chronicle of a family implosion set in unsettling times as gods withdraw from human affairs. Far from the Brooklyn or Ireland of his recent bestsellers, Toibin explores universal themes of failure, loss, loneliness, and repression."
-- "Publishers Weekly, STARRED review"
"A giant amongst storytellers, Toibin has thrown down the gauntlet with his latest novel .
. .
And it is a masterpiece."--Edith Hall "Daily Telegraph"
"A Greek
House of Cards... Just like Heaney at the end of his Mycenae lookout, Toibin's novel augurs an era of renewal that comes directly from the cessation of hostilities."--Fiona Macintosh "Irish Times"
"In a novel describing one of the Western world's oldest legends, in which the gods are conspicuous by their absence, Toibin achieves a paradoxical richness of characterisation and a humanisation of the mythological, marking
House Of Names as the superbly realised work of an author at the top of his game."-- "Daily Express"
"Mesmerizing... [
House of Names] balances the restraint of neoclassical art with the frenzy of a Pollock painting."
-- "O, The Oprah Magazine"
"The misadventures of Agamemnon and his family were repeatedly retold in Greek mythology...In his new novel,
House of Names, Colm Toibin explores part of this story, from the murder of Iphigenia to the murder of Clytemnestra, making it strike a new chord, far more impressive than the pious respect or worthy aura of 'classicism' that often surrounds it. Part of Toibin's success comes down to the power of his writing: an almost unfaultable combination of artful restraint and wonderfully observed detail....[this] transforms his account of the sacrifice of Iphigenia from what could all too easily have been a ghastly version of operatic bombast into a moving tragedy on a human scale...he is also very good on exploiting the puzzling gaps in the ancient narrative, especially where Orestes is concerned...But Toibin has bigger themes in mind, too, particularly the cycle of violence that seems to trap the family of Agamemnon."--Mary Beard "The New York Times Book Review"
"Written with the 'knowledge that the time of the gods has passed, ' Colm Toibin's take on the classic myth of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in
House of Names evokes a husband's vanity and a wife's rage, casting the fragility of our closest bonds in fresh light."-- "Vogue"
