[4] According to Colm Tóibín, the book "is full of Joycean moments... it takes from ‘Clay’, the most mysterious story in Dubliners, the idea of a single, middle-aged woman visiting a family and finding both comfort and humiliation there".

[5] Robert Fulford, writing in Canada's The Globe and Mail, describes it as "a bleak post-Catholic novel" that depicts "a desolate life, stripped of warming humanity".

A film based on the book, but with the story relocated to Dublin, was released in 1987 with Maggie Smith in the title role.

[9] Commenting in the Belfast Telegraph, writer Carlo Gébler stated: " [T]he author communicates her specificity (she is a lonely, damaged, needy, alcoholic, Catholic middle-aged woman who yearns for love) with enormous tenderness and precision."

His technique, he added: "combines third person omniscient narrative with first person stream of consciousness material: by combining the two (and he does this deftly) Moore...tells his story and he allows us unfettered access to the private interior world of the people he is writing about.