Critical Acclaim
Never a dull moment.
So much of it seemed very familiar to my own struggles and wow moments.
A classic. A lovely book.
The humour and the entertaining bits make one laugh out loud, but underlying this is the layer of pathos and longing. Hyperbole confronts understatement; sensitive and poetic passages of intense sympathy contrast with brutal reality.
Nostalgic as well as immediate… and thoroughly engrossing.
An utterly readable account of a memorable ‘ordinary’ environment. Uncle Vic is a ‘funny bugger’ with a Conradian outlook. ‘Uncle’ Stan is wonderfully disreputable. A charming book…as tender a maternal portrait as you will ever read.
The world that Nicholls evokes is vivid, full of laughter, triumph and tears.
Some of the book was comfortably close to home for me: some uncomfortably so.
It has everything: humour, pathos, history, laughter, tears.
Simple experiences imbued with charm… dilemmas presented clearly in a way that should strike chords of recognition…this is worth reading.
Your book has helped me understand the men in my life so much more… and recognise the enormous value of parenting and mentoring the unique nature of boys.
A wonderful story beautifully told.
I really did enjoy it and – the mark of a good book – I definitely did not want it to end.
Many of us have memories of our own innocence abroad.
Dry, witty, sad, funny and amazingly frank.
Comic and loving…the reader is hooked from the beginning. You’ll want to raise your glass to Brian and his gang of relatives.
I’m definitely going to be reading your book over and over because as well as the history behind it there are the constant stories of mischief and humour.
Brian Nicholls creates an array of memorable characters. A lack of sentimentality is a strength of both McCourt’s (Angela’s Ashes) and Nicholls' memoir, but the national humour and idioms of A Saucepan in the Sky stand out as unmistakably Australian.
I reluctantly read the last page and immediately wished for more.
Thank you for your story and your style.
