The Old Joke: Press reviews

‘I absolutely love The Old Joke. It is written with immaculate precision and patient originality, yet never takes itself so seriously that we can’t laugh out loud and occasionally weep for these beautifully delineated characters.’

Maureen Lipman

‘Reina James enters the dark places and throws a strong light upon them. She is never sentimental but always humane, a brilliant writer.’

Linda Grant

‘Reina James is such an acute and sympathetic observer of people, and so alert to the poignancy in their lives as well as to what’s comical or foolish about them, it’s hard not to feel you’ve come to know her characters as closely as your own friends, and impossible not to miss them when the book ends. I enjoyed it a lot.’

Andrew Cowan

‘Prize-winning author Reina James has created an utterly convincing narrator, at once witty and vulnerable, desperate to change her existence but with no idea how. The wonderful touching depiction of the mutual tolerance and affection necessary to sustain a long marriage is worth the price of the ticket on its own.’

Daily Mail

‘This is black comedy, but achieved with a delightful sense of the ridiculous. James keeps up the tension, so that one becomes quite eager to know what’s going to happen next.'

Times Literary Supplement

‘A bright, funny story … Reina James describes beautifully the dilemma of seeing disaster looming for a friend while being unable to prevent it and, in attempting to provide a diversion, getting steamrollered by events. We see it all through Miriam’s eyes and … are drawn into her enjoyable, rather sideways view of the world and share her helplessness, all the while cheering her on her resilience as she copes heroically with a life on the downward slope.'

Tablet

‘A brilliant talent.'

Jewish Chronicle

‘A funny, illuminating tale’

Big Issue in Scotland

‘An engrossing first-person narrative … there is a charm and deft humour to James’ clear prose, which will have many readers nodding in recognition at the all too real characters and situations that make up this poignant meditation on ageing, family and friendship.'

Big Issue

'Reina James … is wonderfully funny and sympathetic, wickedly sharp and disrespectful about our ambitions and identities in the later stages of our lives.'

Saga magazine

'It's rare that we read about the lives of older people in fiction, and James is to be commended for writing about them.’

Independent on Sunday

‘A fresh clear narrative and very dryly and wryly observed.'

Maureen Lipman, The Times