"Sillitoe offers an authentic and vivacious portrait. . . . A sheer delight."--Saturday Review
"A beautiful piece of work."--The Guardian
"Brilliant."--The New Yorker
"Mr. Sillitoe is a born writer, who knows his milieu and describes it with vivid, loving precision." --Daily Telegraph
"There are few writers around who can rival Sillitoe when it comes to the complicated business of noticing things." --Literary Review
"A master storyteller." --The Observer
"Miles nearer the real thing than D.H. Lawrence's mystic, brooding working-men ever came." --Sunday Express