She does voices, she mimics, she has a sensitivity to the absurdities of language. She's a performer who simply didn't choose to perform upon a conventional stage. Her work often doesn't seem funny, but then is funny under the surface – sometimes even quite grave stories

Richard Ford

The portrait she gives us is nothing short of wonderful, and the way she gets hold of the particular quality of Southern speech, with its nuances, obliquities, and special kind of humour, is a minor triumph

New Yorker

One of the most original, subtle and magical of American writers. Her prose is incandescent and her vision supremely humane

Joyce Carol Oates

Exquisite account of a hazy, troubling Mississippi summer in the 1920s... I can't imagine why I haven't read it before'

Tessa Hadley, Guardian Summer Reads