News & Observer: “…stylistic bravura…existential wallop…”

“…a riveting meditation upon a family’s accursed history… what gives these biographical particulars their existential wallop is Payne’s raw, sustained intensity. Reading Payne can feel like a near-physical experience, of being swept along by sinister forces that in different ages have gone by such names as original sin, melancholia, madness, and most recently, brain chemistry.”

— John Murawski, News & Observer