"The profundity of Appanah's tale, sensitively translated by Geoffrey Strachan, emerges from a puckish mix of the fairy tale . . . and the meta. . . . All is shot through with a mournful lyricism. As the family's situation refuses to resolve easily, the book's sincerity glows anew. 'One's heart needs to be scrubbed clean every day, at every challenge, ' the narrator says. The world's beauty lies in its imperfection–and in our earnest, if inadequate, stabs at ethereal escape."–Mike Peed, The New York Times Book Review
"A lyrical and richly human exploration of the disruptive turbulence engendered by family and identity."
–Booklist "Lyrical and striking. . . . [
The Sky above the Roof is] a tender and beautiful portrayal of unarticulated pain."
–Publishers Weekly
"Taut and impressionistic."
–Meg Nola, Foreword Reviews "
The Sky above the Roof is the story of two fearful children, Paloma and wolf, and the trouble girl who is their mother. All three are isolated, lonely within their family relations, all of them inadequately protected from life. It is a shimmering and uneasy novel, its apparent stillness always under the threat of some violence, of some darkness erupting. Appanah exposes disconnection, trauma, sadness, but works them delicately into something so very beautiful and strange."
–Daniel Hahn
