The Latehomecomer

Reviews / Votes

The literary sensation of 2025... the exquisite stories she left behind place her among the greats * Telegraph * A vital introduction to one of the greatest short-story writers... merciless comedy and flinty compassion * Guardian * Gallant writes such sumptuous sentences, her perception is so original -- Tessa Hadley Gallant is one of the last century's champion short story writers... Her short fictions have the amplitude, if not of a novel, at least of a novella -- John Self * The Critic * An exceptional short story writer... The 16 sophisticated tales gathered here beautifully capture the elegance and economy of her prose * Daily Mail * The irrefutable master of the short story in English, Mavis Gallant has, among her colleagues, many admirers but no peer. She is the standout. She is the standard-bearer. She is the standard -- Fran Lebowitz [Gallant's stories] are their own genre in a way; they are so much richer, so much denser than so many novels... Her body of work is unique and profound; I don't think there will be another quite like her -- Jhumpa Lahiri Gallant always surprised us, she never bothered with the dramatically obvious. As a writer she was beholden to no one. And for a writer whose stories could be dark and misanthropic, it is remarkable to see how many of them are also gently, continually funny -- Michael Ondaatje Unblinkingly attentive and keen-eyed . . . Wise, dry, funny, and subtle -- Hermione Lee Luminescent, subtle and lasting. Gallant's chronicles of internal and external exile are a fitting tribute to a diasporic century * Guardian * Gallant's work reminds you to think more deeply about the people you deal with . . . She reminds us of how fathomless we are, how there is always more to know -- Peter Orner One of the most brilliant story writers in the language, who deserves to be read as widely as her fellow Canadian Alice Munro. No one writes about brutish people like Gallant; she transforms the meanest human specimens into subjects of high fascination and sympathy * New Yorker * Line by line, word by word, no one writes with more compression than Gallant. Great short stories are sometimes said to be as rich and as full as novels, but hers are as rich and full as encyclopedias -- Francine Prose * Harper's * Mavis Gallant's insights into her characters are achieved with breathtaking economy and rightness of detail. She is a terrifyingly good writer -- Margaret Atwood Compulsively readable and deeply memorable... Inimitable * Guardian * One of the great short-story writers of our time -- Michael Ondaatje Vital and lively... Gallant's language is precise and often funny... A wonderful writer * Evening Standard *