Hawthorn and Child

An idiosyncratic and fascinating novel... refreshingly contemporary in language and style -- Zadie Smith
Breathtakingly unpredictable... the writing is perfectly assured and elegant -- Scarlett Thomas * Guardian *
He turns people inside out, detailing their quirks and vulnerabilities with engaging perceptiveness * The Times *
Vibrant, wonderfully written, funny and deeply troubled...The writing is effortlessly lyrical, [venturing] into extraordinary, at times beautiful interludes of philosophical observation... Read Hawthorn & Child. Better still read it twice: it's that real, that good, that true -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *
Ridgway writes with the keen sense of place and the lucid, pared-down prose of a good crime novel, which makes the more outlandish deviations even more arresting -- Killian Fox * Observer *
Not only in its dialogue, but in its bawdy subversiveness, Hawthorn and Child is a thoroughly Irish affair. Samuel Beckett and Flann O'Brien come regularly to mind, although Ridgway's blend of the grotesque and the absurd is all his own... An admirably conceived work of fiction -- Erik Martiny * Times Literary Supplement *
Cool and brisk and oblique, pulsing with intrinsic energy, fresh and vital... Really, what more can you ask of a novel? -- Darragh McManus * Irish Independent *
Like Nicholson Baker, Ridgway has the descriptive power to locate the sublime hidden inside mundane minutiae. And like Paul Auster, he knows how the accretion of ordinariness can be made to seem overwhelming and sinister to a bewildered narrator * Independent on Sunday *
Why are all books not like this? Stunning * Book Atlas blog *
[P]anoramic... A human texture runs unbroken through this, the work of a writer not afraid to punctuate * Totally Dublin *
Structurally bold, and eye-opening in subject matter. It kicks the reader out of their comfort zone -- John Self * Asylum *
Ridgway is writing fiction as radically new and provocative as any of the current generation of writers around the world, literary darlings with such exotic names as Eugenides, Hemon, Houellebecq, Kunzru, Murakami, Eggers * Irish Independent *
Ridgway doesn't so much redraw the map as show us what was there in the first place.He writes as though he has uncovered something, not invented it; as though these tales, so completely new, have been around for a long time -- Anne Enright
An anti-detective novel... it's always compelling, and underpinned by Keith Ridgway's singular vision * We Love This Book *
Ridgway tells all in dextrous prose that consists largely of grimy details and sentence-fragments, occasionally bursting into more flowing narratives which evoke different kinds of character * David H blog *
Ridgway pulls off an interesting trick, painting a bleak picture with marvellously vivid colours -- Dave Hanratty * Hot Press *
A simply stunning novel ... Ridgway's achievement in this book is quite remarkable in its imaginative breadth and literary depth. I'm not sure that I have read anything like it * Words of Mercury blog *
A cracker... Ridgway writes with deceptive ease even whilst it dares to reach the parts other novels cannot reach... There are some writers you read and come back to again and again because they consistently produce work of quality, variety and ingenuity. Ridgway has joined that list for me * Just William’s Luck, blog *
Unusual and excellent... [The writing] has a lightness and economy that is far from self-conscious.... playful but deeply humane -- Jeremy Beale * BookOxygen *
A cracker... Ridgway writes with deceptive ease that makes you feel as though the book is an easy read even whilst it dares to reach the parts other novels cannot reach... There are some writers you read and come back to again and again because they consistently produce work of quality, variety and ingenuity. Ridgway has joined that list for me * Just William’s Luck blog *
A mindbending mash-up * Stylist *
Remarkable... Vibrant, packed with the poetic density of a short story... [A] unique and affecting work * Eve’s Stalker blog *
You might not have heard of Ridgway; he's a bit of a well-kept secret... He deserves to be better known. He writes odd, modernist stories about urban madness: lives shaped by uncertainty, random sex and, occasionally, staggering brutality * Metro *
A startling and fantastic book... Simple, elegant prose, powerful characters, beauty and misery and love and humour - and detectives! It's a crying shame this didn't get on the 2012 Booker list - it deserves mass recognition * Bookmunch *
Captures your attention in the first paragraph and keeps you up all night * Izzy Reads blog *
A bizarre and brilliant book that is funny, perverse, surreal and fiercely intelligent... one of the best books of the year * Booktrust *
A surreal kaleidoscope of characters and mysteries... you could go on reading it forever * Hull Daily Mail *
An exceptional book -- Sinead Gleeson * Irish Sunday Independent *
The prose is so clear and natural, it flows beautifully * Asalted blog *
Modern, edgy, uncompromising... Ridgway's entertaining and literary novel deconstructs the police procedural and puts it back together as a weird kind of character study... Ridgway has delivered a book that catches the reader off-guard, keeps us working, and still grips us after the last page * Irish Examiner *
If there are more disturbing stories published this year than this book, I am not sure I'll want to read them * Uncut *
If you're sometimes attracted to odd books that raise more questions than they ask, this is a novel for you. Read it, ponder it, read it again and spend endless hours trying to unpick it * Being Obscure Clearly blog *
Ridgway's unique and significant talent is an ability to get inside the intricate workings of a character's thought process, to explore what is at once mundane and complex, and create something profound from it * Gay Community News *
This sly, strange and quietly wonderful book reminds us that talent is always innovative -- Sam Kitchener * Literary Review *
The novel that has impressed, mesmerised and bamboozled me most this past year... Gorgeous (if unsettling)... It's great -- Ian Rankin, Books of the Year * Guardian *
Written so well, with such intensity and such insight that it sets you purring - even as it raises a hammer behind your head -- Sam Jordison, Books of the Year * Observer *
A great Irish novel -- Stuart Evers, Books of the Year * Observer *
One of 2012's oddest, most remarkable books... Ridgway has written a curiously satisfying paean to incompleteness -- Justine Jordan, Books of the Year * Guardian *
An impressionistic portrait of London -- Edmund Gordon * London Review of Books *
Defies categorisation -- John Boyne, Books of the Year * Irish Times *
Too clever to be resisted... An unorthodox, word-of-mouth success -- Charlotte Heathcote, Books of the Year * Sunday Express *
A strange and beguiling novel which gleefully and surreally escapes the tyranny of plot under which most detective stories are compelled to exist -- Ian Rankin, Books of the Year * Scotsman *
One of the best books that I have read all year... The prose is simple, dark, punchy and effective... The brilliant writing, compellingly created cast, sense of mystery and dark humour which will sustain you from the start until the end * Savidge Reads *
Bold and formalistically daring, written with an ease and brilliance that must make other writers want to give up... Believe the hype -- Just William’s Luck blog
At his best, Ridgway is unapologetically strange -- Scarlett Thomas * Guardian *
Our investigators try to make the crimes conform to the logic of constructed stories, but life isn't like that and neither is [this book]... Well-written and challenging -- Alastair Mabbott * Herald *
It's tough, literary, violent, poetic, hardboiled, noirish, arty - like a fusion of Dashiell Hammett and Paul Auster -- Brandon Robshaw * Independent on Sunday *
Excellent... buoyant with grotesque brilliance -- Galen O’Hanlon * Skinny *
A brilliant stylist * The Millions *
A surprisingly moving novel, full of emotionally powerful fragments that chisel into your memory -- Books of the Year * Tin House *