"O’Connor’s first collection of short stories for 20 years reasserts a mastery of the form...An exhilarating array of sharp dialogue and biting one-liners...A fine compassionate collection."
IRISH INDEPENDENT

"A masterclass in versatility... Atmospheric vignettes bring O’Connor’s prose close to poetry... His terrific ear for idiomatic speech makes dialogue sizzle off the page... This outstanding collection exhibits the continuing vitality of the great Irish tradition of richly concise, crisply written stories that Joyce’s work began."
SUNDAY TIMES

"Full of lovely, delicate perceptive stuff. Joseph O’Connor is in the tradition of masterly Irish
writers of short fiction."
THE SCOTSMAN

"Lustrously evocative…It's the Irish author's first collection of short stories in more than 20
years and it's masterful .....Vivid, compassionately rendered tales..."
SUNDAY BUSINESS POST

"O’Connor showcases the kind of effortlessly comic demotic cadences that first endeared him to
readers."
METRO

"A wonderful collection of stories."
THE WORKS, RTE TELEVISION

"I couldn’t recommend Joseph O’Connor’s stories enough.... One of my favourite books of the
year... His turn of phrase is a delight."
RYAN TUBRIDY, RTE RADIO

"The highlight of these accomplished stories is the superb title story, revealed gradually with
beautiful subtlety. Excellent."
THE TIMES

"Frank O'Connor believed the short story to be characterised most of all by "an intense awareness of human loneliness", and it's this O'Connor movingly displays here [in the story ‘The Wexford Girl’]."
THE GUARDIAN

"Dublin in all its gore and glory is quite wonderfully evoked...The language shines, and the landscape comes so wonderfully to life...A spellbinding way with words.... A collection of an extraordinary calibre."
BOOKS IRELAND

"O’Connor’s first collection in more than twenty years is well worth the wait...Individually these
stories are quietly unassuming gems; together, a powerful ode to modern Ireland."
THE INDEPENDENT (LONDON)

"O'Connor's deftly poignant prose unites tales of old New York, the ghosts of the Celtic Tiger and yuppy London."
JOANNA HARRIS, VOGUE MAGAZINE

"It is O'Connor's tenderness in examining troubled, fragile lives which leaves the lasting impression from a master at work."
RICHARD FITZPATRICK, IRISH EXAMINER, BEST BOOKS OF 2012

"This collection is beautiful; full of pure, simple truths that linger long in the mind. All around O’Connor’s characters, things change – but humanity, in its loves and losses, stays the same."
PHILIP WOMACK, NEW HUMANIST MAGAZINE

"O’Connor’s prose is satisfyingly sensitive to his protagonists and enchantingly rhythmical, his pacing is perfect, his dialogue masterful at revealing what is really swimming to-and-fro between characters."
SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

"Joseph O'Connor's collection of stories Where Have You Been? is playful but also at times sorrowful; it allows in great quantities of life, offering the dramas at times a dark edge but also the full glory of our earthly confusion."
COLM TÓIBÍN, IRISH TIMES, BOOKS OF THE YEAR

"A masterclass. Mood and style in these richly concise, crisply written stories are confidently varied. Adding vitality to the virtuosity is a terrific ear for idiomatic speech."
SUNDAY TIMES BEST BOOKS OF 2012, PETER KEMP

Star of the Sea has now sold 820,000 copies

For fans of Roddy Doyle's The Commitments and Nick Hornby's High Fidelity

Joseph O'Connor won the 2012 PEN Award for Outstanding Achievement in Literature