PRAISE

From the reviews of An Irresponsible Age:

‘Lavinia Greenlaw writes like the poet she also is, using words with an exhilarating unexpectedness … The writing is never precious, but does what all good prose should do: recreates life in a way we recognize but may not have seen before in quite this way’

PETER PARKER, TLS

‘Greenlaw captures the sense of life’s hopeless randomness, showing, with irony yet tenderness, the raptures and trials of love, and the folly of failing to seize the day. In a novel that treats romance with seriousness, the shirking of the duty to make each moment matter is the most venal and irresponsible act of all’

Scotsman

‘Greenlaw’s vision can be laser-sharp, her work displaying a talent for moving between the abstract and the keenly observed’

Independent

‘There is a deep sense of imminent reckoning pervading this subtle and intriguing novel; an unspoken understanding that the irresponsibility – personal and political – must come to an end’

Observer

‘Greenlaw, who is also a poet, superbly brings to life her characters’ inner life and their perceptions of their world … and gives the novel an irresistible emotional logic and force’

Financial Times

‘Greenlaw’s prose has an absorbing internal motion, gliding and swooping over events, pushing you forward, then pausing to capture a simple image. And behind it all is a moving, understated ode to grief that lingers after the last page’

Metro

‘Above all, An Irresponsible Age is terrifically funny; how could it be otherwise? This is Festen with the edges softened, transferred to the Home Counties’

New Statesman

‘It is hard not to compare this novel with The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen’s novel about family life at the end of the twentieth century … sensuous and richly descriptive’

Literary Review