Shena Mackay has created one of the most distinctive bodies of work in late-twentieth-century British fiction. Beginning at an early age, she specialized in writing about the raffish, the eccentric,...
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In the following excerpt, Jordan provides a favorable review of An Advent Calendar.
An Advent Calendar provides a slight but raffishly entertaining excursion to the rundown territory Shena Mackay has ...
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In the following excerpt, Barnes offers a mixed review of Redhill Rococo.
Redhill Rococo experiments in a little-known genre: the ‘Condition of Surrey’ novel. The main feature of the sty...
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In the following review, Duchêne commends the combination of humor and sadness she finds in Redhill Rococo.
In Shena Mackay's new novel [Redhill Rococo], the fuddled vicar, finding himse...
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In the following review, Mars-Jones offers a mixed assessment of the stories in Dreams of Dead Women's Handbags, asserting that Mackay's “faults are intermittent, her virtues ...
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In the following review, Maitland derides the plaintive tone and psychological density of the stories in Dreams of Dead Women's Handbags.
Shena Mackay has an uncomfortably accurate and shrewd e...
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In the following excerpt, Craig offers a mixed review of the stories included in Dreams of Dead Women's Handbags.
The women characters of Shena Mackay [in Dreams of Dead Women's Handbags...
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In the following review, Huth lauds Mackay's eye for detail in Dunedin, but faults the unevenness of the novel.
It is a puzzling fact in the literary world that while some writers' names...
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In the following review, King draws comparisons between Dunedin and the work of Charles Dickens.
When the dust has settled on the millennium and readers want to find out how people lived in our age, t...
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In the following review, Sage describes Dunedin as “exuberant, cruel, depressed and hilarious by turns—a manic-depressive book, all ups and downs.”
The street-theatre of “c...
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In the following favorable review of Dunedin, Clapp elucidates the defining characteristics of Mackay's fiction.
Shena Mackay has written the first anti-speciesist novel. Dunedin does not featu...
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In the following favorable review, Broughton identifies the unifying theme of the stories in The Laughing Academy to be “the limits of responsibility and compassion.”
Here are nine perfe...
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In the following positive review of The Laughing Academy, Cooke underscores Mackay's widespread appeal as a fiction writer.
You have to laugh at life's absurdities. It's better th...
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In the following essay, Smith comments on the influences of World War II in Mackay's Dunedin, Martin Amis's London Fields, and Alasdair Gray's Lanark.
While it can be argued that ...
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In the following review, Emck deems The Orchard on Fire as “a bittersweet, gentle novel, not given to grandstanding or preaching, but shot through with humour and compassion.”
Shena MacK...
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In the following review, Birch offers a mixed review of The Orchard on Fire.
At the heart of The Orchard on Fire is an intense best-friendship between two little girls in a fictional Kent village in 1...
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In the following positive review of The Orchard on Fire, Brookner contends that “in her misleadingly straightforward novel the author has set out a rite of passage which will leave few readers ...
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In the following positive review of The Orchard on Fire, Field praises Mackay's sense of the macabre and provides an overview of her literary career.
The annals of contemporary fiction are full...
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In the following positive review, Chong views The Orchard on Fire as a charming and evocative novel.
You can have a near out-of-body experience with Shena Mackay's latest novel, The Orchard on ...
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In the following review, Clausen surveys the strengths and weaknesses of The Orchard on Fire.
When eight-year-old April Harlency, “born into the licensed trade,” arrives in Stonebridge, ...
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In the following review, Eder commends the absurdist humor and social satire he finds in An Advent Calendar.
John is buying chopped meat in his rundown North London neighborhood when Mick, the butcher...
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In the following review, Yardley regards An Advent Calendar as a proletariat novel.
No doubt about it, this is a very strange novel. Written by a British novelist who has published numerous other book...
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In the following review, Shulman compares The Artist's Widow to the work of Charles Dickens and praises Mackay as a highly talented novelist.
It is traditional for novelists to write about pain...
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In the following review, Annan surveys the broad range of characters in The Artist's Widow.
Shena Mackay's latest novel [The Artist's Widow] invites you to observe the Zeitgeist o...
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In the following review, Fairweather considers The Artist's Widow to be a disappointing novel.
At some juncture in her lengthy career as a writer, Shena Mackay must have encountered the publish...
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In the following review, Brownrigg views Mackay as a talented short story writer and touches on the key thematic concerns of the stories in The World's Smallest Unicorn.
A common, self-deprecat...
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In the following mixed review, King notes the humor and poignancy of the tales collected in The World's Smallest Unicorn.
As one of the most gifted contenders in the literary Olympic games, She...
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In the following essay, Hamilton traces Mackay's life and literary development.
Shena Mackay has never been one for trendy self-promotion. Like Lyris, the neglected painter in her most recent n...
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In the following review, Croft contends that the stories in The World's Smallest Unicorn are “unique, bittersweet stories, full of fun but far from light reading.”
The stories of ...
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In the following review, Hensher assesses Mackay's literary accomplishment and asserts that Heligoland “has a deceptive simplicity which conceals great art, and it manages to convey a bi...
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In the following review, Bradshaw lauds as gorgeous the prose of Heligoland.
Shena Mackay's elegant, elusive new book [Heligoland] sketches out the circumstances of marginal and defeated lives ...
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Shena Mackay
