`Its embattled characters are so real that by the last page you feel not just that you have read a magnificent novel but that you have experienced life itself.' * The Times on The Spare Room * `This is the power of Garner's writing. She drills into experience and comes up with such clean, precise distillations of life, once you read them they enter into you. Successive generations of writers have felt the keen influence of her work and for this reason Garner has become part of us all.' * Australian * `Her use of language is sublime.' * Scotsman * `Garner is a natural storyteller.' * James Wood, New Yorker *