"The author says she asked, ‘What does it take for a woman not to be defeated when everything around her is telling her to sit down and mind her manners?’ Kadish answered the question by writing a superb novel. Reading it, I gasped out loud more than once with the sheer joy at Kadish’s use of language and intricacy of thought."

"The people of this sci-fi novel live underground in darkness. They retain ‘light’ in their language, but only in allusions to a lost paradise. They worship Light (‘For Light’s sake!’), and their theology includes demonic figures that engineered the fall from Light’s grace. The demons are called Strontium, Cobalt, and the arch-devil, ‘Hydrogen Himself.’ Go figure, as you Americans say."

"“Grief and Reason” is the book I most often return to. It contemplates death as it has been presented in prose and poetry over the ages. The book continually asks the question of whether loss creates a sense of self or destroys it. It also poses the question of whether loss or mourning can bring forth a new artistic language."