“James Hanley’s writing is as succinct as a telegram, nude, yet terrific.” —The New York Times

“[Hanley’s writing is] uncompromising, stark, too truthful to be comfortable.” —Anthony Burgess

“[Hanley was] not British, not American, not South African, not Ebury Street, not Chicago. Just language like a good clean cyclone.” —William Faulkner

“A modernist master.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Powerful and moving . . . Hanley’s brilliance is to shock us whatever our level of sophistication. . . . The reader’s consciousness is seared by the experience.” —London Evening Standard

“Painfully honest and direct . . . The horror of the situation grips from cover to cover.” — Financial Times

“This novel has retained its power to shock. . . . It is, quite simply, one of the bleakest books ever written.” —Nick Hornby

“The story is quite shattering in its impact.” —The Independent

“A message in a dirty bottle from the days when it was brave to be dirty.” —The Literary Review

“A cry of protest against the degradation of the human spirit.” —The Scotsman

“A work of remarkable power.” —The Spectator

“There could be few more shocking accounts of the brutality of life.” —The Daily Telegraph

“A novel of great power.” —The Sunday Telegraph

“A fiercely accusing report on juvenile maltreatment . . . which has a blistering directness that shrivels decorous veilings of ugly facts.” —The Sunday Times

“Boy is an excellent, more, a necessary introduction to the chaotic, frightening world of [Hanley’s] fiction—which is our world too.” —The Sunday Correspondent

“A novelist of distinction and originality.” —E. M. Forster

“Hanley is one of the most able and influential writers in the English language.” —The Boston Globe

“[Hanley] is that rarity of rarities: a genuine original.” —The New York Times Book Review

“[Hanley] is one of the most consistently praised and least-known novelists in the English-speaking world.” —Time