"The Devil comes to Moscow and, of course, makes trouble, accompanied by a cat shooting six-guns and an associate who disappears when he turns sideways. But Satan also helps the Master, a tortured writer, recover a manuscript he’d written and burned. One of the greatest Russian novels. Stalin didn’t like it."

"When I was asked by my publisher to write a novel in their new series of novels based on Shakespeare-plays, I said yes, if I can have “Macbeth.” Why? Because it’s bloody. And short. And quite good. I don’t know if it was because of that answer, but they gave me “Macbeth.”"

"My favorite of Flann O’Brien’s novels, although I love At-Swim-Two-Birds. Profound, haunting, mystical and utterly hilarious. The bizarre narrative is accompanied by an eccentric parallel saga about something obscure called The De Selby Codex, a red herring that gradually grows in quantity until it all but obscures the main story."