Constance (McGrath) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
[T]he novel's effects are oddly, cumulatively hypnotic. As a piece of monomaniacal writing, McGrath's strange narrative never fails to grip and startle. But as a study of emotional and sexual anesthesia, of marital numbness, of the ways in which family obsession and love—or the lack of it—can wreak havoc on a person's psychological and sexual development, it's a tour de force…[an] unforgettable book.
Julie Meyerson - New York Times Book Review


McGrath demonstrates the power of his craft with a thoroughly unlikable protagonist, hell bent on not only her own destruction but also that of everyone around her, escalating a pattern of familial dysfunction that she has the power to stop, yet chooses not to. ... [I]t’s difficult to understand [her stepson] Sidney’s motivations for wanting to save her; she doesn’t seem worth saving. Despite McGrath’s demonstrable skill, the reader will be left with mild irritation rather than catharsis.
Publishers Weekly


Unhappy families being unhappy in their own way...again. McGrath's hyperanalytical approach to traumatic family relationships runs deep. Constance Schuyler, a cool, iconic blonde in a Hitchcock-ian mold, lives in New York.... Although Constance seems to hate her father...her marriage to Sidney suggests she's looking for a father replacement.... Throughout the novel, McGrath moves us from Constance's to [her stepson] Sidney's point of view, sometimes lurching the novel forward by having them use the same words to characterize what's happening in their lives. A novel of fierce rages and great tenderness, exhausting in its emotional intensity.
Kirkus Reviews