Winner of the S. Mariella Gable Prize

“Poetic and breathtakingly beautiful.” —Library Journal, starred review

“Like The Hours, Kitchen’s novel does not feel derivative, partly because some stories can be told again and again, and partly because she is a fine, imaginative writer.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

“A rich and compelling rip-off of Joyce’s Ulysses. . . . It takes chuzpah to attempt a story like this . . . Kitchen succeeds wonderfully.” —Kirkus Reviews

“If you loved The Hours, Michael Cunningham’s prize-winning tribute to Virginia Woolf, you will want to know more about Judith Kitchen’s comparable inspiration from Joyce.” —The Irish Literary Supplement

“When you are reading The House on Eccles Road, all you’re thinking about is how good a writer Kitchen is and how happy you are to surreder to her way of seeing the world.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“[The House on Eccles Road], like Homer’s Odyssey and Joyce’s Ulysses, remind us that home is where love keeps us waiting, no matter what horrors and errors befall us. In so doing, she writes a book worthy of having a Molly in it, a book whose enormous aspirations in echoing Joyce also simultaneously accomplish an unusual and innovative echo of Homer. I cannot suggest that Kitchen’s book is such genius that it will join the Western canon. But it is an impressive and remarkable effort certainly deserving of respect, and its status as a memorable contribution to the many retellings of the story of Odysseus.” —James Joyce Literary Supplement

“Lovely and moving…. One must look forward to future novels after such a distinguished beginning.” —The Modern World

“The House on Eccles Road is an achingly beautiful novel both of the mid and of the soul, capturing an interior sense that is too fragile to be spoken—too enduring to be broken.” —The Sanford Herald

“Kitchen’s writing is powerfully direct. . . . the quietest celebration of Molly’s coming of age.” —Publishers Weekly

“A definition of a true vision in a novelist is to strike a balance between the novel of the mind and the novel of the heart—exactly the synthesis that Judith Kitchen in The House on Eccles Road renders in a flawless prose.” —Stuart Dybek

“There’s a job in computers, there’s baseball cards, and ‘a pink plastic radio with Johnny Mathis;” this isn’t Joyce’s Dublin. Still, here’s Leo and Molly and some guy named Steve—not simply contemporized by Judith Kitchen, but deeply reimagined into the quirks, quips, and quandaries of (at last! and well worth the wait) a Mollycentric universe. The House on Eccles Road is a lovely exploration of history and legacy, with its roots in Dublin and Europe, but its blooms (and Blooms) in our own very mixed-together American air. It’s a ripe, rich read.” —Albert Goldbarth

“In The House on Eccles Road, Kitchen writes gorgeously into the layers of what it means to live in disarray and communion with oneself and with others. This is a mature novel, a novel for grown-ups—where the messiness of a lived life is neither explained nor apologized. In beautiful sentence after beautiful sentence, here is Kitchen’s vision: abundant and lyrical and true.” —Victoria Redel, previous winner of the S. Mariella Gable Prize

“I once read about a splendid shawl which was so finely woven it could pass through a wedding ring as easily as smoke. That image comes back to me, when I consider Judith Kitchen’s novel, The House on Eccles Road. I deeply appreciate how she has done what she has done, but most of all I am grateful that she has found a modern way to do an old-fashioned thing: break my heart with words on a page. I bow.” —Mary Hood