Ron
Butlin
NIGHT VISITS (Scottish Cultural Press 1997 and Serpent’s Tail 2003)
‘spellbinding
and compassionate’
The Independent
‘My
novel of the Year’
Edwin Morgan in The Scotsman
‘Butlin
is a successor to Kafka or Borges, two names that should be invoked whenever
the necessity to save the short story may be questioned. Butlin writes
with penetrating insight and reassuring compassion avbout people who have
exhausted their own supplies of hope, yet in his hands they are never
entirely hopeless.’
Time Out
‘Sick,
disturbing, menacing exceptionally good . . . Excellently depicted and
a credit to the skill and compassion of Butlin, this is contemporary fiction
at its best.’
The Void
‘.
. . as with the best psychological tales, [Night Visits] succeeds because
it leaves the real terrors to the imagination.’
The Scotsman
This
Bergman-bleak novel is devastating but eventually uplifting.’
Uncut
Though
the setting lends itself to gothic overstatement, Butlin’s exploration
of emotional abuse is shocking without being sensationalist.’
Guardian