We find in Farrell’s novels links between the depicted colonial past and the postcolonial present that yield an abundance of ironies and ambiguous parallels.
—Ivan Kreilkamp,​ Public Books

Remarkable … Mr. Farrell deserves high praise for this novel. It is subtly modulated, richly textured, sad, funny, and altogether memorable.
—Times Literary Supplement

A tour de force … sad, tragic, also very funny.
—The Guardian

Farrell wrote superbly; all his books had a quality that hallmarks great literary talent—he could “do” texture. This album—which is what Troubles feels like—records the same Anglo-Irish as Elizabeth Bowen knew and belonged to. As with Bowen, this feels like the real thing (which is all a novel has to do). Always judge a writer by his grasp of what he doesn’t know: Farrell died young yet his old people are almost his best creations.
—Frank Delaney, The Guardian