Josh Lawton

Every scene is clear, every character immediately recognisable . . . brilliant * Daily Telegraph *
The book is exciting . . . a pleasure to be remembered * Financial Times *
It has the lilt and inevitability of an old ballad . . . [He] skilfully portrays the friendships and antagonisms in rural Cumberland, a territory he has staked out as his own -- Paul Theroux * The Times *
With this novel, Melvyn Bragg has established his place in English letters to the extent that his Cumbria is as potent a literary region as Hardy's Wessex, Lawrence's Midlands and Housman's Shropshire * New Statesman *
Beautifully told . . .the story unfolds with admirable simplicity . . . even the most brutal and inarticulate characters somehow manage to engage our sympathies * Spectator *
An effortless writer. He never strains for effect, simply achieves it * Sunday Times *
Nothing is harder to convey in fiction than the idea of simple goodness without it appearing soppy or naïve. But Melvyn Bragg succeeds. * Evening Standard *
As he demonstrates yet again in Josh Lawton, Melvyn Bragg has a rare ability to communicate both happiness and goodness * Sunday Telegraph *
[Bragg] is a poetic eye, a visionary of sorts. * Guardian *
The pleasure to be had from this book is that of feeling, without having been exposed to any lies or romantic evasions, that the world is perhaps a better place that one had thought * Sunday Times *
A nearly perfect work of art. Within the confines of craggy Cumberland, Bragg brings to life a handful of people, exposes the violence and brutality of British rural life and does it with a skill and sincerity unmatched since D. H. Lawrence. * Newsday *