Surreal, hypnotic and unique... an epic journey of enquiry (
Independent 2010-11-13)
A great read... It works triumphantly... Lyrical, profound, heartbreaking and fantastically funny, it becomes, as the questions pile up, a compendious and intimate portrait of the questioner... it is superbly balanced. (Bryan Appleyard
Sunday Times 2010-10-31)
An extraordinary book... a celebration of the human need to understand, which makes it life-affirming. Fresh and funny, it reminded me of the work of that other playful miniaturist, Nicholson Baker. (Adrian Turpin
Financial Times 2010-10-23)
Powell is asking us to consider what we want from fiction... a remarkable book... Where many experimental novels are content merely to test the limits of our concept of fiction, Powell is more ambitious... he has succeeded in producing a novel which exists entirely off the page; it is our unseen responses which determine what the story will be. (Sam Byers
TLS 2010-11-12)
Would you spend £9.99 on this book? (Ben Jackson
The Sun 2010-11-12)
What if I told you that, as unlikely as it may sound, reading this book was one of the most intriguing and pleasurable experiences I have had this year?
An impressive literary comeback and a work of real bravado and charm. The book is not a novel but it manages to do something that many novels try to do: it offers a detailed, fascinating character study by exploring the textures of a highly individual and idiosyncratic sensibility... There is, as these questions accumulate, a kind of melancholy, an obsessive nostalgia that is, in a way that is hard to put one's finger on, deeply moving....
So did I enjoy this book? Should you read it? Do you really have to ask?
(Troy Jollimore
Observer 2010-11-07)
Is this the most bloody-mindedly brilliant new work of fiction I have read this year? Why? Who's asking? Could you stop that please? (Stephen Poole
Guardian 2010-11-13)
When we first came across Padgett Powell's remarkable writing it blew our minds completely... brilliant!... bonkers Beckettian comedy... a truly great and hilarious little book, and these questions are for life. Not just for Christmas. (Stuart Hammond
Dazed and Confused 2010-11-01)
A compulsive read...you'll find yourself answering back to every page (Danielle Goldstein
Time Out 2010-11-18)
A remarkable book. ..astonishingly insightful...compelling and mesmerising...The prose is beautiful and the questions admirably structured, touching upon all aspects of life from the mundane to the sublime...Powell fires off razor-sharp questions with a casual flair that belies the intensity and personal nature of some of the questions...Brilliantly inventive and intelligent, The Interrogative Mood is a bewildering and fascinating story. Not only is it unique and strange, but this bizarre book will linger in your mind long after you've stopped reading (Bryony Byrne
Aesthetica 2010-11-01)
Precise and beautiful, intimate and hilarious, you will never have read anything quite like it