Reviews
"Ross-in a brilliant stylistic mirror of marriage-blends dream and reality, fact and perception in a narrative that's both cinematic and lyrical…The book is by turns harrowing, tender and funny." -Nancy Connors, ClevelandPlain Dealer "Mr Peanutis full of tricks: shifting narrations, quirky chronology and meta-novels within novels. The effect is disorienting, but the characters are too well drawn to feel like pawns in some game. The result is a deliciously clever book, full of dark insight and even a touch of hope." -The Economist "Fearless, challenging and unforgettable…Mr. Peanutis acutely funny and profoundly sad, an unexpected and unsettling journey into the heart of contemporary darkness….[Ross is] a sublimely impertinent new writer." -Steve Whitton,The Anniston Star "[A] major work….Stories are told and retold, hinge on one another, depend, and connect. That layering, that subsonic, towering buildup, is howMr. Peanutworks, and it is a marvel." -John Timpane,The Philadelphia Inquirer "An author whose voice is so distinct and vivid that you truly can't find any comparison [and] a book whose combination of rhythm, language and style are unlike anything else I've ever encountered…a sort of wondrous literary alchemy [that's] laugh-out-loud funny and shrewdly aware of human nature…ReadMr. Peanutfor its insight into marriage. Read it for the humor. Read it for the thrills. Just read it, please." -Joy Tipping,The Dallas Morning News "An ambitious and well-crafted noir that manages to humanise its characters while fashioning their stories into a gripping page-turner. Ross's depiction of love and hatred, and the conflicted ways we manifest these feelings, is both sensitive and fearless." -Mary Fitzgerald,The Guardian(U.K.) "Plainly thrilling…the work of a boundlessly eager writer willing to try just about anything, and invite us to share in his sinister joy." Christopher Kelly,The Kansas City Star "Exciting and strangely moving [and] vastly ambitious….The whodunit aspect ofMr. Peanutis absorbing, but the infinite mysteries of marriage are really at the heart of this novel and drive its considerable emotional suspense." -Hilma Wolitzer,The East Hampton Star "A murder mystery [and] also a complicated jigsaw puzzle of intertwined relationships….This may be [Ross's] first novel, but it's written as though he's been doing it for ages." -Dwight Silverman,Houston Chronicle "An existential puzzle of a book, a noirish work that seemingly has no literary precendent." -Rege Behe,Pittsburgh Review-Tribune "The debut of an enormously talented writer…From the first page on, it's clear that Mr. Ross is a literary gymnast [and] a sorcerer with words…Dark, dazzling…A Rubik's cube of a story that reads like a postmodern mash-up of Tolstoy'sKreutzer Sonata, Edward Albee'sWho's Afraid of Virginia Woolf'and one of James M. Cain's noirish mysteries." -Michiko Kakutani,The New York Times "Darkly funny, densely woven and deeply unnerving…a page turner that reveals something new from every angle." -Jim Ridley,The Nashville Scene "Gripping…This highly original debut uses the police procedural as a hall of mirrors to reflect pleasure and guilt, marriage and murder.&r, "[A] major work….Stories are told and retold, hinge on one another, depend, and connect. That layering, that subsonic, towering buildup, is howMr. Peanutworks, and it is marvel….Adam Ross is a writer who can bring it." -John Timpane,The Philadelphia Inquirer "An author whose voice is so distinct and vivid that you truly can't find any comparison [and] a book whose combination of rhythm, language and style are unlike anything else I've ever encountered…a sort of wondrous literary alchemy [that's] laugh-out-loud funny and shrewdly aware of human nature…ReadMr. Peanutfor its insight into marriage. Read it for the humor. Read it for the thrills. Just read it, please." -Joy Tipping,The Dallas Morning News "An ambitious and well-crafted noir that manages to humanise its characters while fashioning their stories into a gripping page-turner. Ross's depiction of love and hatred, and the conflicted ways we manifest these feelings, is both sensitive and fearless." -Mary Fitzgerald,The Guardian(U.K.) "Plainly thrilling…the work of a boundlessly eager writer willing to try just about anything, and invite us to share in his sinister joy." Christopher Kelly,The Kansas City Star "Exciting and strangely moving [and] vastly ambitious….The whodunit aspect ofMr. Peanutis absorbing, but the infinite mysteries of marriage are really at the heart of this novel and drive its considerable emotional suspense." -Hilma Wolitzer,The East Hampton Star "A murder mystery [and] also a complicated jigsaw puzzle of intertwined relationships….This may be [Ross's] first novel, but it's written as though he's been doing it for ages." -Dwight Silverman,Houston Chronicle "An existential puzzle of a book, a noirish work that seemingly has no literary precendent." -Rege Behe,Pittsburgh Review-Tribune "The debut of an enormously talented writer…From the first page on, it's clear that Mr. Ross is a literary gymnast [and] a sorcerer with words…Dark, dazzling…A Rubik's cube of a story that reads like a postmodern mash-up of Tolstoy'sKreutzer Sonata, Edward Albee'sWho's Afraid of Virginia Woolf'and one of James M. Cain's noirish mysteries." -Michiko Kakutani,The New York Times "Darkly funny, densely woven and deeply unnerving…a page turner that reveals something new from every angle." -Jim Ridley,The Nashville Scene "Gripping…This highly original debut uses the police procedural as a hall of mirrors to reflect pleasure and guilt, marriage and murder."-Christopher Fowler,Financial Times "An enormous success-forceful and involving, often deeply stirring and always impressively original…A brilliant, powerful, memorable book." -Scott Turow,The New York Times Book Review, front page "A stunningly dark debut that takes as its forebears both Scott Turow and Italo Calvino…To say this is a thematically rich book is hardly to do [it] justice…there is a way in which this too-clever-to-be-neat story resists such thematics…yet Ross cleaves closely to all the pleasures of the genre: mystery, suspense, romance, surprise. And in this sense,Mr. Peanutis highly unique-a disturbingly funny and remarkably poignant novel from one of the year's most promising new voices." -Jillian Quint,BookPage
