Ghost Stations

‘McGuinness celebrates an ordinariness so entrenched as to seem supernatural . . . Under McGuinness’s attention all this, and all the other glimpsed and overheard life, become fascinating, charming, poignant, comic, daft at times, and absolutely deserving of the effort to preserve and transmit an intimate strangeness.’ - Sean O’Brien

‘Patrick McGuinness writes of the other country of childhood with Proustian élan and Nabokovian delight.’ - John Banville

‘He takes his place among those singers and painters of the haunted, the melancholy, the diminished, the caricatural, the humdrum.’ - Michael Hofmann, Guardian

‘A multitalented writer . . . The balance, charm and wit of the writing are remarkable.’ - Kate Kellaway, Observer

‘McGuinness has a delightfully distinctive voice . . . His buoyant imagination always carries the day.’ - Claire Harman, TLS

‘[McGuinness] combines elegant prose with caustic commentary on romance, education and crime . . . Most people can write for a lifetime and not produce so perfect a sentence.’
- Patrick Anderson, Washington Post

‘His prose, like his poetry, is a marvel to behold . . . one of the finest British authors of his generation.’ – New Republic