"[Blackburn's] real talent is in conjuring up lives . . . You have the uncanny sensation that you have met Goya, felt his honest horny hands, watched him work." --The Economist

"[Blackburn's] rare imagination and profound intelligence . . . carry her into the mind and the work of Francisco de Goya . . . Each image, exquisite in its plainness, draws us first into the landscape, then into the past, a process Blackburn repeats until we are mesmerized." --The Boston Globe

"[A] singular, empathetic homage....Blackburn's attempt to see with Goya's eyes...is most successful and moving. . . .She writes like a painter of still lives." --The Observer (London)

"Blackburn's prose is elegant and precise, illuminated by intelligence, curiosity, and a refined visual sense . . . [She] beautifully conveys the changed reality of the newly deaf painter." --Literary Review