SOURCE: Korn, Eric. “The Galilean.” Times Literary Supplement (13 June 1997): 25.

In the following review, Korn offers a positive assessment of Quarantine.

Roughing it in Ruristan is a fine thing, but one of the keenest pleasures of dependent travel is the trusting sense of infantile repose that comes from a guide (or guidebook), whose first words give assurance that you are going to be shown the most important and impressive sites in suitable logical order, and with adequate commentary; that you will not be mislaid, delayed, deluded, hijacked, persecuted by thirst or heat or postcard-sellers; and that there will be cold drinks and comfort at the end.

All readers of fiction are dependent travellers, and Jim Crace's masterful narratology sets one musing on the nature of the authoritative. When he speaks, you listen, where he leads, you try to follow. This has nothing to do with the mandarin, the high-falutin...