Alva & Irva

‘Out of the bleached calico of the tale of the 6ft twins emerges a very witty debate about reality, about the way that people cling to the past, about how people define themselves . . . Carey involves you quietly in the way we live secret lives, the way we try to wring order out of chaos, the way time tinkers with memory and history.’ Independent

‘The drama of Alva and Irva, flung apart, then back together, by history and happenstance, is gestural, graceful, balletic.’Guardian

‘Carey takes great care to describe Entralla, to make it a credible place, and the love story between his siblings, which passes through infatuation and resentment to reconciliation, is told with real power.’The Times

‘Its charm comes from the fact that it is sweetly sentimental about the pleasures and pains of belonging to a place and being clear that it owns you and not the other way around . . . This is a smart little novel of ideas about odd people for whom we end up caring more than we expect.’Time Out