‘Stephen Hough’s memoir had me gripped from the beginning [ …] riveting and revelatory. Most memoirs give me far more than I want to know – this is the rare sort that left me urgently demanding a second volume, a third, a fourth. I loved it.’ — Philip Pullman

‘A warm, wise and unflinching stroll down memory lane. And Hough writes like a dream, with an almost Alan Bennett-like eye and ear for the sights and sounds of childhood ... What Hough's memoir makes abundantly, movingly clear is that all roads lead back to his parents ...They don't define him. But they made him. You can hear it in his music. Chaos, creation, catharsis.’ — Dan Cairns, Sunday Times

‘A rich, endlessly fascinating book.’ — Philip Pullman

‘One pleasure after another.’ — Gramophone

‘The delightful musings of a wise and worldly polymath.’ — Financial Times, Books of the Year

"Hough’s intermittently poetic prose is as precise as his music. He carefully paints a world of voracious desire and chronic loneliness, as the 60 short, tautly written chapters take us ever further into the protagonist’s mire. . . . Hough’s novel is important, brave, and controversial. It deserves to become a classic of its kind." — Church Times