The Guardian
Adam Newey
"It is perhaps odd that, faced with the ultimate dislocation, Reid is, in this book, at his least "Martian". Yet the old wit and erudition are still there... As an act of devotion, A Scattering perhaps proves the almost-truth of Larkin's almost-instinct at the end of "An Arundel Tomb", that what will survive of us is love. How fitting, then, that this beautiful book should begin and end in benediction; it is surely no accident that the opening and closing words are "blessing" and "blessed"."
07/03/2009
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The Independent on Sunday
Stephen Knight
"A moving, unsentimental record of loss, A Scattering is as deft as anything Reid has written. Its playfulness, which includes finding rhymes for "sarcoma" and "tumour", does not obviate tenderness but complements it. Where others ratchet up their writing, Reid prefers a quiet approach."
29/03/2009
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