Helen Simpson - In-Flight Entertainment

Financial Times“The best short-story writer now working in English...” She examines her characters' lives with such magnesium-lit precision that they are both acutely realistic and richly colourful. I was torn between sharing the anxiety of the her main protagonist and luxuriating in the pure pleasure of her skill...

Scotsman“A sharply drawn vignette of family life...” With her fifth collection, she turns her miniaturist's eye to sudden illness, tumours, the infirmities of old age and death. Reading these 15 stories reminds you what horribly painful collisions there would be if we spoke our thoughts out loud...

The Independent“Defies any squeamish excess of sentiment... ” Simpson deftly picks at the excuses and prevarications of those determined to ignore the moral inconvenience that is global warming, just as she expertly anatomises those chafed areas that marriages tend to squirm around...

The Telegraph“Simpson has yet again nailed the joys and frustrations of middle age...” The problem with the collection is that though the title story is well observed, the references to climate change elsewhere feel forced...

The Times“We see how fine a writer Simpson has become...” It is all packaged with Simpson’s deadpan wit – she is one of the most sharply funny writers in England today – but humour can be quietist: we may just be amusing ourselves to death.

Guardian“When it comes to short stories, this writer knows her stuff...” The collection as a whole is carefully organised, with the lightest piece butting against the most death-haunted one and a tidy distribution of public and private themes...

The New Yorker“Not yet reviewed”

The New York Times“Not yet reviewed”

Publishers Weekly“Not yet reviewed”

Economist“Not yet reviewed”