Rooney’s book bundles up all of Switzerland’s ‘gilded ambiguities’ into a fascinating package that is part road trip, part reading list, part memoir, and part historical exposé.
Mary C. Flannery in the TLS
‘A fascinating look behind the scenery at how Switzerland has influenced and affected some of the greatest authors and some of my favourite books.’
Diccon Bewes bestselling author of Swiss Watching
‘There is a mastery in his handling of prose-rhythm which I find exciting. It is in order for an ageing writer, in a valediction to Irish readers, to essay a prophecy about Irish letters. Mr. Rooney will be a credit to them.’
Anthony Burgess
‘With his sharp eye for detail and a historian’s capacious knowledge, Padraig Rooney has written a superbly amusing guide to all the writers who’ve been drawn to or emerged from Switzerland’
Edmund White author of A Boy’s Own Story
‘The country has proven a draw and inspiration for literary greats… with a touch of Clive James in its humour.’
Valerie Shanley in the Irish Mail on Sunday
‘A lively and entertaining tour of literary Switzerland. Rooney has an eye for the telling anecdote, and leavens the text with a case of eccentric minor characters, shadowy figures lurking in the back alleys of world literature. Informative and full of surprises…’
Chris Nancollas in The Tablet
‘His journey sees him track the snowprints, shattered booze-glasses, and missed spy drops of the likes of rousseau, Byron, Hemingway and Le Carré.’
Wanderlust
‘Part memoir, part literary criticism, part biography, part curiosity and almost wholly intriguing… his observations on how and why writers embed Switzerland into their work are often brilliant. Rooney has constructed a love letter to reading…’
Hugh MacDonald in The Herald
Ho hum Switzerland – a giant deposit box for dodgey billionaires? A smug prison of “stiff, null, propriety” (DH Lawrence) or playground and bolt hole for scribblers? Beginning with the Romantics – Byron (on a diet), Shelley (almost drowning) and Mary Shelley (babysitting and writing Frankenstein) the author tots them up. John le Carré was recruited here, Ian Fleming found the scenery and political intrigue the perfect inspirations. …Hemingway, Herman Hesse, Thomas Mann, Nabokov and Patricia Highsmith (“jaded, butch, Scotch-soaked lady novelist”) died here. Padraig Rooney has lived in Switzerland for 15 years and manages a balancing act between folksy myths that have shielded the Swiss from the reality of neutrality (and housing billions) and the intrepid scribblers.
Rosita Sweetman in the Irish Times
