SOURCE: Enright, D. J. “Larger than Life.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4927 (5 September 1997): 21.

In the following review, Enright discusses Richler's characterization in Barney's Version and compliments the novel's lean narrative pace.

[In Barney's Version] Terry McIver, a former friend and fellow Montrealer, is about to expose Barney Panofsky as a wife-abuser, an intellectual fraud, a purveyor of pap and probably a murderer. In reply, and notwithstanding his lawyer's opinion that McIver isn't far wrong, Barney resolves to set out the true story of his “wasted life”. His entrepreneurial beginnings were humble: importing French cheese and olive oil into Canada, running an agency for Vespa scooters and flogging ancient Egyptian artefacts stolen from the Valley of the Kings. “I have my principles. I have never handled arms, drugs, or health foods.” When we meet him, he is sixty-seven, “reeking of decay and dashed hopes”, though living high on Totally Unnecessary...