“…A supremely intelligent and intense novel. Conrad Williams writes like a dream.”
Publishing News
“This novel is a gripping piece of work, written with style and panache.”
Sunday Telegraph
“Williams’ plot is enthralling. He mixes discussions about the importance of keeping art untarnished by commerciality with insider knowledge of the film world’s methods and language. And even though these themes form the core of the plot, he still devotes time and skill to fleshing out the characters and the picturesque location of the story…’Sex and Genius is a compelling book and, with the combination of moral dilemmas and a complex cast, it reads as if it were written in a different age (it’s no surprise that one of Williams’s literary inspirations is Henry James). An accomplished debut, bringing ideas about principles into the ultimate modern day situation.”
Big Issue
“Williams is a delightfully eloquent observer.”
Time Out
“A cleverly written seduction dance…Wry, mature, richly drawn (and) accomplished.”
Daily Mail
“Gripping, intelligent and highly enjoyable…a plot as twisting as the sublime Amalfi Coast. The Hollywood wheeler-dealers read like Martin Amis at his funniest. One is swept along by the passions of each character as they attempt to manipulate the other…An impressively old-fashioned debut.”
The Times
“A fan letter to the old-fashioned novel in form as well as sentiment, with plot refreshingly to the fore…a readable, atmospheric debut.”
The Observer
“Absorbingly interesting and tense…characters etched with economy and pungency…the Hollywood grotesques provide darkly comic relief, their brittle world drawn convincingly and colourfully…Williams is adept at recreating experience through buoyant dialogue and characterization.”
TLS
“This debut novel takes the classic Edenic form: beauty and happiness delicately drawn, then systematically destroyed…Williams deploys a rich leisurely style, which captures the subtler shades of emotion while viewing the physical scene with an almost alien freshness. The complexities - and many virtues - of this book defy concise summary.”
Times Play
“Williams has a natural turn of phrase and a facility for evoking place and ambience… For all the vicarious thrills gleaned from becoming romantically entangled with a beautiful actress and playing Los Angeles sharks at their own game, Williams goes for a decidedly un-Hollywood finale, but it is in this ending that he reveals the novel’s truth. In an age of spin and speed, of the relativity of meaning and the politicisation of morality, Williams provides a moment of sublimely Aristotelian emotional logic: some things can only be one thing or the other, not both at the same time.”
ScriptWriter Magazine
