Industry Reviews
"Smart, dry, edgily funny. A shrewd and richly disturbing pleasure." –William Boyd
“Imperfect Solo is a perfect riff on what it means to be human in this unsettled age—a complex range of notes from the profound, to the tender, to the laugh-out-loud. Anti-hero Joshua Meyer is, like the characters of Martin Amis and the Coen Brothers, hapless and hopeful, brave and bewildered; he is a little bit of all of us. Bravo!”—Renée Montagne, National Public Radio
"If you like Philip Roth you will like Steven Boykey Sidley. They both created a middle class hero, average in everything, loud mouthed, funny, and desperate. Meye appeals to us as if we were sitting in the first row of a club listening to him with emotion, at times carried away by his joy, other times touched by the melancholy of his change. Life is but a jazz solo, ephemeral and intoxicating, and this book is a real success." –Elle
"A chiseled novel you won't put down." –Marie Claire
"A smart and funny novel about the horrors of running out of time and luck, set in Philip Roth terrain. Sidley goes eyeball-to-eyeball with the great novelists of America's 20th century and, amazingly, stares them all down." –Rian Malan, author of My Traitor's Heart
"With a subjectivity similar to that of the paranoiac in Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, Steven Boykey Sidley carries us into his hero's imaginary and real tribulations. A little jewel of Jewish depressive humor." –Livres Hebdo
"A hilarious novel . . . It signs the coming on the literary scene of a new troublemaker. Smashing!" –Madame Figaro
"Big hearted, whip smart, and his best yet, Imperfect Solo invites us to celebrate the coinage of an adjective: Sidley-esque." –Richard Poplak, Daily Maverick
"Unlikely as it may seem, the southern tip of Africa has given rise to a male narrative voice, the precise timbre of which has not been heard since Portnoy. This is not to say that Sidley's books are derivative. They aren't. They are an original product of the 21st century and as such ring with authenticity." –Fiona Snykers, The Times
"Imperfect Solo is a near perfect commercial novel. Not only does it entertain, but it provokes, intrigues, and captures the good, the bad, and the ugly so vicariously that it reads effortlessly." –Siyabonga Sithole, City Press (Johannesburg)
"Sidley plays with parody, engaging his reader at a deep level, while frequently causing gales of laughter even amidst the saddest moments." –Jennifer Crocker, Cape Times
"Reading a Boykey Sidley novel is to experience vicariously a life lived to the full, with all of the excitement, tension, mishaps, and intellectual stimulation one wishes for but rarely gets. Sidley has the knack of expressing ideas most of us merely fumble at–and he does so acutely, fascinatingly, viscerally. Full of unflagging energy, verve, and surprise, Imperfect Solo is a rare aesthetic delight." –Craig Mackenzie, professor of English, University of Johannesburg and UJ Award judge
