Exit Wounds

Reviews / Votes

[Godwin] is excellent at bringing in literary allusions to capture the gossamer quality of memory, skipping lightly but illuminatingly from Dorothy Parker to Emily Dickinson and from Philip Larkin to Vladimir Nabokov . . . Godwin takes palpable pleasure in language, and sometimes this produces poetry . . . Exit Wounds is an elegant, cerebral book * * Sunday Times * * A profound account of this strange time of life we're all in - when all the certainties we thought we'd sorted out are collapsing around us and we're suddenly like naked children in the wilderness . . . This moving memoir is an essential addition to Peter Godwin's brilliant oeuvre -- CLAIRE MESSUD Finely wrought, contemplative, intimate, lyrical and searingly emotionally honest, Exit Wounds is a story of war and love and of tragedy. In a life that has been marked by loss: of a birthright, a nation, of family and finally of his marriage, Peter Godwin traverses the wilderness of grief towards redemption. Exit Wounds will leave you breathless and imprint itself indelibly upon your heart -- AMINATTA FORNA So funny, so elegant, so erudite, and as a portrait of an extraordinary mother and the family she made, it is masterful, moving and unforgettable -- DAVE EGGERS Like Rembrandt, each unflinching portrait-in-prose illuminates Peter Godwin's extraordinary life. His masterwork -- RICHARD E. GRANT Smart, observant, touching . . . deeply affecting * * Spectator * * Magnificent and moving -- TAN TWAN ENG A memoir on love, loss and life, of rare candour and intimacy, utterly compelling, by a truly brilliant writer -- PHILIPPE SANDS Eloquent.beautiful.. Mr. Godwin writes about his ma with affection and careful detail. Gentle humor is ever-present -- Tunku Varadarajan * * Wall Street Journal * * This is an exceptional memoir, its stories told with such immediacy that the reader lives Godwin's days with him . . . Few people have described better the anguish of separation, the constant sense of not belonging, the quest for a centre that might hold. He writes humorously; but there is no mistaking the pain * * Times Literary Supplement * *