'Cartwright is a dab hand at character definition, from a few lines of dialogue or a fleeting view. The contemporary setting of coastal and rural South Africa is briskly brought to life without the self-indulgence of lavish description. When he does unleash a flight of language, it is to all the more effect - as with the memory shards which conjure up seminal moments. Subsidiary figures are vividly evoked ... this is fictional skill of the highest order.' -- Penelope Lively, Independent 'A quirky meditation on the relations between men and monkeys, whites and blacks and men and women ... Cartwright has stared unflinchingly at the bleak prospects for white people in South Africa today.' -- Maggie Gee, Sunday Times 'Cartwright is always interested in how people make sense of present-day confusions by returning to the past... At one level an excellent study of male mid-life crisis, 'White Lightning' is also about a white man's longing for contentment in a chaotic continent he barely understands.' -- Tablet 20020921 'A new novel from Cartwright is always a cause for celebration and he doesn't let us down. His use of language is as inventive as ever, his tale poignant and deeply affecting.' -- Northern Echo 20020924 'This is a novel about death, but also about the power of the past to resurface and influence the present when least expected ... Cartwright's formidable reputation can only be enhanced by his latest novel, with its vivid prose and dazzling imagery.' -- The Good Book Guide 20020901 'Sizzles with Cartwright's usual wit and alertness to differing social scenes. In the course of an exhilaratingly various narrative, the spotlight sweeps across relationships between humans and primates, men and women, and whites and blacks.' -- Peter Kemp, Sunday Times Books of the Year 20020901 'Cartwright is one of our best novelists, but he still feels like buried treasure ... [White Lightning is] really about absolution, and that's how the reader feels at the end: purged, elated, marvelling. -- Allison Pearson, Daily Telegraph Books of the Year 20020901 'A moving story of a man totally alone, and a powerful evocation of a country yet to come to terms with its tragedy-strewn destiny.' -- Ros Drinkwater 20020901 'Justin Cartwright's hauntingly brilliant new novel ... is beautifully realised in prose that is cool and elegant, sardonic and knowing ... A profound meditation on race, politics, ageing and death - not least the death of the illusions we harbour about ourselves. It is the best novel I have read this year.' -- Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph 'Apart from being a profoundly serious writer, Cartwright can also be an abrasively amusing one. Scarcely a page of this book fails to yield some pleasure. WHITE LIGHTNING is a book of substantial merit.' -- Francis King, Literary Review 'Beguiling. With this novel, Cartwright, a former Whitbread Award winner has put it all together - style, story, theme - to produce something exceptional.' -- Giles Newington, Irish Times 'This questioning, elegiac novel is much more than another portrayal of mid-life crisis. It deserves a place beside those accounts of Africa, from Conrad to Naipaul, which encapsulate an outsider's sense of this world as both alluring and forbidding, and always only half-understood.' -- Times Literary Supplement 20020815 'Subtle and moving...Cartwright weaves the story of the man and the baboon with a magicians's delicacy...White Lightning underlines the intelligence and breadth of imagination that this former Whitbread Novel of the Year winner brings to every single paragraph of his work.' -- Daily Mail 20020816 'White Lightning is a subtly complicated novel, a work of many layers, each poignant, yet so cleanly written that its profound misery is neither cloying nor sentimental.' -- Glasgow Herald 20020810 'Kronk's existential nausea is narrated in exquisite prose ! A compelling exploration of the limits of human consciousness ! Cartwright supersedes the dour cultural whiplash meted out by much post-apartheid white writing, and with the satiric humour of survival profoundly exposes the idiocies of historical inequality.' -- Rachel Holmes, The Times 20020810 'A work of literary art, a mellow, beautifully constructed fable about the human hunger for goodness, it is by far the best thing Cartwright has done.' -- David Robson, Sunday Telegraph 20020810 'Brilliant, dazzling, unsettling; subtle and haunting; complex and multi-layered; deeply moving ! Cartwright manages to combine the thrilling readability of genre fiction with the unpredictability and strangeness of a literary master. It's astonishing that he still isn't spoken of in the same breath as Amis and McEwan: he ought to be.' -- Suzi Feay, Independent 20020811 '[Justin Cartwright] looks to be one of the finest novelists currently at work, and White Lightning an altogether stunning achievement.' -- DJ Taylor, The Guardian 20020811 'This is fictional skill of the highest order.' -- Penelope Lively, Independent 20020811 'Touching and quirky ... like a counterpoint to J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace' -- Maggie Gee, Sunday Times 20020811 'Cartwright is a hugely skilled writer ... And always, whenever he wishes, Cartwright can produce passages of uncommon beauty.' -- Michael Thompson-Noel, Financial Times 20020811 'Mr Cartwright is a brilliant observer and writes extremely well.' -- Anthony Daniels, Evening Standard 20020811 'Cartwright is a beautifully evocative writer; also one who makes you think. Though there is a pervasive sadness to this novel, it is often harshly and sharply funny ... The rhythm is perfect, and almost every page offers such delights.' -- Alan Massie, The Scotsman 20020811 'Cartwright's formidable reputation can only be enhanced by his latest novel, with its vivid prose and dazzling imagery.' -- The Good Book Guide 20020901 'Cartwright is a beautifully evocative writer; also one who makes you think. Though there is a pervasive sadness to this novel, it is also often harshly and sharply funny.' -- David Robinson, The Scotsman 20021114 'Cartwright is a wise and perceptive novelist, keen to probe the dark places of the human heart and the complexities of post-colonial Africa, and possessed of a laudable ability to capture life as it rushes past at terrible speed.' -- James Smart, Sunday Herald 20021114 'This book is beautifully written and you can almost feel the heat of the outback searing from the pages.' -- Linda Clover, Yorkshire Evening Press 20021106 'Justin Cartwright is one of our best novelists, but still feels like buried treasure. WHITE LIGHTNING ... [is] really about absolution, and that's how the reader feels at the end: purged, elated, marvelling.' -- Allison Pearson, Telegraph Books of the Year 20021106
