Skip to main content

Critical Praise

"A fine novel.... A sense of family as anchor and root and self-definition [gives] the book its considerable strength.... Mr. Savage is a writer of the first order, and he possesses in abundance the novelist's highest art-the ability to illuminate and move. "

—The New Yorker

"A powerful storyteller.... Savage writes about lives moving inexorably toward a decisive moment.... His books deserve to be much better known than they are. "

—Roger Sale, New York Review of Books

"The Sheep Queen is marvelous.... Her reign has a mythic grandeur. "

—Katha Pollitt, New York Times Book Review

"The work of a masterful novelist writing at the peak of his form.... The Sheep Queen touches the reader directly and powerfully; it sticks to the bones.... In the best sense of the term the novel is old-fashioned, concerned as it is with such timeless matters as the continuity of family, the bonds of love, the yearning for roots and identity.... Any reader will come away richly and happily rewarded.... The Sheep Queen is the best of Savage's ten novels, the capstone of a distinguished and, I think, important career. "

—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World