PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF PAULA FOX

Winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award

Winner of the Paris Review’s Hadada Award

“The greatest writer of her generation.” —Jonathan Franzen

“One of America’s most talented writers.” —Publishers Weekly

“Consistently excellent.” —The New York Times

“Fox has always been adept at writing apparently simple stories which on closer examination prove to explore the essential meaning of relationships … and to illuminate our understanding of the human condition.” —School Library Journal

“Paula Fox is so good a novelist that one wants to go out in the street to hustle up a big audience for her.… Fox’s brilliance has a masochistic aspect: I will do this so well, she seems to say, that you will hardly be able to read it. And so she does, and so do I.” —Peter S. Prescott, Newsweek

“Fox is one of the most attractive writers to come our way in a long, long time.” —The New Yorker

“As a writer, Fox is all sensitive, staring eyeball. Her images break the flesh. They scratch the retina … Fox’s prose hurts.” —Walter Kirn, New York magazine

“Fox’s achievement is to write with magnificent restraint and precision about the interplay of personal and historical, inner growth and outer framework, the process of learning to think about oneself and the world.” —Margaret and Michael Rustin

“Fox has little of Roth’s self-consciousness, less of Bellow’s self-importance, and none of Updike’s self-pity. Unlike all three men, Fox does not jealously save the best lines for a favoured alter ego, and her protagonists do not have a monopoly on nuance. Instead, she distributes her formidable acumen unselfishly, so that even the most minor characters can suddenly offer crucial insight, and unsympathetic characters are often the most fascinating: brilliant, unfathomable and raging.” —Sarah Churchwell

“There are no careless moves in the fiction of Paula Fox.… [Her] work has a purity of vision, and a technique undiminished by homage or self-indulgence.” —Randal Churb, The Boston Review

“Paula Fox is as good as her revived reputation suggests.” —Fiona Maazel, BOMB

Monkey Island

ALA Best Book for Young Adults

ALA Notable Book for Children

A Horn Book Fanfare Selection

“An emotionally powerful story … These are characters readers will understand and care about … Masterfully crafted.” —The Horn Book Magazine, starred review

“[Fox] tells with almost unbearable clarity about a boy’s quest to find himself.” —Booklist, starred review

“Exquisitely crafted with spare but resonant detail—an absorbing, profoundly disturbing but ultimately hopeful story.” —Kirkus Reviews, pointer review

“Delicate and moving … A relentless story that succeeds in conveying the bitter facts.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A quietly terrifying, wholly compelling novel … Once again, Fox displays her remarkable ability to render life as seen by a sensitive child.… Clear-eyed and unblinking as ever, she shows us the grit, misery and despair of the homeless.” —Publishers Weekly

“A carefully crafted, thoughtful book.” —School Library Journal