The Perfect Stranger

'A joyous yet unsentimental account of Kavanagh's early life and his few years with Sally. A story of love and tragic loss'

'Not sentimental nor self-pitying but vivid, humorous and bent upon describing a world in which the one person who had seemed to make sense of it had been lost'

'Patrick Kavanagh's memoir is a small masterpiece of its kind, reflecting all the wit, unabashed frankness and literary elegance of its author'

'A fine memorial to love and youth'

'Funny, unique and powerful. A wise, sad, wonderfully written memoir that's ripe for rediscovery'

'To hear the truth so devastatingly and yet so joyfully encountered is rare in an age where autobiography has been flattened by the massed weight of political and public reminiscence. This autobiography, from its beginning to its bitter end, is a celebration of joy: joy in youth, in woman, in male camaraderie, in the struggle of art, in married love'

'[A] remarkable work of prose... It won the Richard Hillary Memorial Prize, for in reality it was a testimony to the absence of the one person who could help him work out the puzzle of life, his wife, Sally'

'I've re-read The Perfect Stranger many times and still think it, though unique, a model "of its kind"'

'A terrific book, vivid, funny and moving... The account of his narrow escape from the great battle in Korea is brilliant, as is in a quite different way the elegiac conclusion to the book'