Light Lifting

Alexander MacLeod's control of cadence and rhythm is so complete that it seems effortless. These stories offer a real pleasure which comes from the sense of life and emotional honesty in them. The pleasure also comes from their beautiful tone and something in the voice which is both relaxed and perfect. They contain a rare kind of truthfulness.

Colm Tóibín

Every so often a new writer comes along with a true gift for language...an elegant, conversational simplicity

LA Times

Outstanding

Suzi Feay, Independent

Brilliant...engrossing, thrilling and ultimately satisfying: each story has the weight of a novel

The Economist

Rarely does fiction inhabit the body - the moving, athletic body - as fully as in Alexander MacLeod's debut story collection... Sensitive and subtle, MacLeod is a writer through whose deliberately partial and quotidian pieces shimmers life's unspoken complexity.

Giller Prize jury citation

[MacLeod's] capacity to encapsulate entire lives in the span of a few pages rivals Alice Munro. This is one of the finest collections of short fiction to appear . . . in a long, long time.

Quill & Quire (Best Books of the Year citation)

Stunningly assured debut...the quality of this collection, is remarkable...for me, a good short story always leaves the reader wanting more. On this evidence, I certainly want more Alexander MacLeod.

Thebookbag.com

Light Lifting arrives bearing Giller Prize and Frank O'Connor Award nominations. These are more than warranted. Alexander MacLeod looks like a heavyweight in the making

Peter Murphy, Irish Times

MacLeod structures the [stories] brilliantly, deftly switching from one narrative thread to another whilst maintaining a pulse-quickening tension

Just William's Luck