"These four fantasy-fiction books by American author Evangeline Walton (The Prince of Annwn, The Children of Llyr, The Song of Rhiannon and The Island of The Mighty) are based on traditional Welsh myths. Someone sent them to me back in 1978 because I’d written a song called Rhiannon 5 years earlier. Walton started her work around 1934 and finished in 1974, which was right around the time that I wrote Rhiannon, so I felt like when her work ended, mine began."

"We’ve all wanted to be someone else at one point or another, but what if you took it to the extreme and made others believe you were that person? This is hybrid cinema at its best, showing that real life is truly stranger than fiction. Close-up has so many layers that I see something new each time I watch it. It’s a profound commentary on the power of cinema and the hold that it has on the outcome of our lives. "

"I have always been drawn to fiction that is written in sublime language and looks at the world through a romantic-realist lens, and this book does just that. It is the story of a White family in New Orleans, in the American South, and their Black servant; a story of race and love and family and dreams. It is filled with longing, melancholy and nostalgia, and it is so atmospheric, so hauntingly described, that the reader never quite emerges from the book."