Cover of the German translation of The Pure Weight of the Heart (2000).
Gambotto … has the soul and style of a poet (Dylan Thomas came to my mind) … a rapier wit and a mastery of the English language. I guarantee you have never read love scenes as beautifully and passionately phrased as these.
- The Bulletin (USA)
Gambotto possesses a major literary talent.
- Who
Dynasty written by a young Martin Amis on speed – full of gilded aristocrats, spleen and sex … Tom Jones eat your heart out – Angelica leaves you for dead.
- Tempo
The detail of the fiction verges on social reality – a warts and all rundown on Australian, American and UK society … an erotic journey of self-acknowledgment … Brilliance.
- Harper’s Bazaar
A brilliant first novel.
- Cosmopolitan
The writing is… like being unable to stop staring into the sun when you’ve been told it damages your eyes … [Gambotto's] picture of the London literary scene is without rival.
- The Age
Incredibly sexy … Sharply observant and at times almost brutal, [Gambotto] has an exquisite ability to dissect pomp and vanity. A brilliant read.
- Fairlady
Poetical writing of the A.S. Byatt school.
- The Weekend Australian
Gambotto writes with great sensitivity and also has a keen eye for satire, which she uses to great effect.
- Tatler (Book of the Month)
A triumph as a work of fiction.
- The Brisbane News
Beautiful … florid and ornamental, lavish and extravagant.
- The Daily Telegraph
Definitely not for the faint-hearted, but fans of Jay McInerney, Tom Wolfe or T. Coraghessan Boyle will enjoy this fierce bite into late twentieth century society life … Gambotto has successfully combined humour, sarcasm and insight to write a novel that cuts through the polished facade … Read it with grim and delighted pleasure.
- The Herald Sun
Gambotto has hit on a winning formula – all life’s excesses and vicissitudes are no match for her main character.
- The Morning Bulletin
A Victorian gothic moral tale crossed with Jackie Collins’ Hollywood Wives.
- Inside Melbourne
This novel has it all – sex (lots and lots), adultery, murder, drugs, breakdowns and child abuse – with all the action underpinned by an obsessively passionate love story … beautifully written, heavily descriptive, laden with caustic wit and cynicism and very, very amusing.
- Cleo
Dense and lush … the story of Angelica, a frighteningly intelligent young woman from a rich and privileged family who, after losing her beloved father, withdraws into a private world of deep thought and longed-for love … Eventually [she] meets her angel/soulmate … and is consumed by a spiritual and physical love so intense it is as if her sole reason for being is to consume him and be consumed by him … beautiful and incisive prose.
- Townsville Bulletin
Gambotto … ignores the publishing convention that the average reader has the working vocabulary of a twelve-year-old … [her] use of imagery and metaphor thus transcends most popular literature … well worth reading.
- Mensa TableAus
The empathy and passion of a Bronte novel.
- The Sunday Times
Gambotto’s portrait of modern society is painfully sharp and brings her journalist’s eye to a new level. Her style, too, unfurls with cool control. Should set the tongues wagging …
- Sunday Life!
Full of sex, caustic wit, glamorous people and plenty of wicked dialogue, The Pure Weight of the Heart … is an ambitious and controversial debut. The characters are larger than life: the entrepreneurial stepfather; the stoned globetrotting model; the amoral artist; the naive American rich girl in pastel cashmere; the bitter socialite … in spite of the rape, incest, death and dying, [it] is a shamelessly romantic love story.
- Melbourne Citysearch
Out of the garret and onto the must-buy lists of [shoppers] all over the country.
- Panorama
Brilliant! Move over, Anais Nin!
- The Sydney Morning Herald
