Book Reviews
Salley Vickers, though treading perilously close to the edge of whimsy, is not a "cute" writer, and this book is more readable and modern— also darker and more serious—than a description may make it sound (though I have to warn that it does have a cutish ending and a few other lapses into near-coyness).
Alice K. Turner - Washington Post
Mr. Golightly's Holiday invites you to sit back and consider the large issues of remorse, redemption, and creation."
— The Boston Globe
Written in elegant understated prose, her work probes the human condition, while encompassing myth, metaphysics and spirituality, and embracing the big themes of life and death, good and evil along the way.
Christie Hickman - Daily Telegraph
Vickers writes quietly and confidently about the relationship between nature, humanity and the numinous. Mr Golightly’s Holiday is simultaneously funny, sad and surprising, as fresh and hopeful as one of Shakespeare’s comedies and for similar reasons. Vickers is never less than original and, when conveying her understanding of human frailty and potential, she can be sublime.
Pamela Norris - Literary Review (UK)
A compulsively readable novel from the word-of-mouth bestseller.... Salley Vickers’ latest is much more than a slightly eccentric and humorous tale about the small things in life. In fact, it gradually becomes apparent that its significance couldn’t be greater .
Observer (UK)
Vickers’ third novel contains all the elements of humour and expert story-telling but the author is far too subtle and intelligent to announce outright what she is really about to do; that is to deal with the intricacies of human emotion and answer some of humanity’s fundamental questions. It is a testimony to Vickers’ skill as a narrator that she manages to produce a hugely readable and uplifting piece of prose out of such difficult and delicate themes. It would seem she takes a certain delight in selecting deliberately weighty subject matter and simplifying it into light-hearted witty prose."
Clare Sawers - Scotland on Sunday
English author Vickers (Miss Garnet's Angel) has a light hand with themes that touch on issues of faith and sin, and her tale of Mr. Golightly, taking a break from his labors in a Devonshire village to see if he can create a worthy successor to his hugely popular and influential first book, begins with wonderful promise. Mr. Golightly's real identity, as well as that of his magnum opus and his chief business rival, is hinted at with delightful delicacy; and the fact that he chooses not to create any supernormal happenings, but to deal bemusedly with the people of his creation just as they are, makes him particularly endearing. Vickers is on sure ground with her creation of the more raffish of Golightly's new neighbors, but the introduction of a ravaged widow, Ellen Thomas, moves the book into murkier psychological waters. After a while the book's good humor begins to evaporate, and there is a highly melodramatic climax, followed by a weird chapter of discussion between Golightly and his rival that is reminiscent of the conclusion of The Brothers Karamazov and seems quite jarringly out of place. Vickers has a delightful if occasionally overwhimsical wit and writes charmingly of nature, human and otherwise, but the book fails to live up to its highly original central conceit.
Publishers Weekly