“With Schroder, Gaige has achieved a remarkable feat. How impressive to have created a protagonist who's brilliant, narcissistic, creepy and unhinged, yet somehow sympathetic. . .Gaige is such a masterful writer that she makes Schroder seem more pitiful than hateful...As unlikely as it sounds, you'll be half-rooting for this lost soul to prevail.”  —USA Today

“A lively narrative. . .insightful revelations about the struggle for identity felt for every immigrant.”  —Jennifer Cunningham, The Herald (UK)

“With Schroder, Gaige has achieved a remarkable feat. How impressive to have created a protagonist who's brilliant, narcissistic, creepy and unhinged, yet somehow sympathetic...Gaige is such a masterful writer that she makes Schroder seem more pitiful than hateful...As unlikely as it sounds, you'll be half-rooting for this lost soul to prevail.” —USA Today

“To say that the piece of fiction Gaige has produced is successful is a serious understatement. . .Schroder is refreshingly bereft of the formal wizardry that characterizes much of the postmodern fiction that attracted academic interest in the second half of the twentieth century… Instead, Gaige turns to the ineluctable parts of life that go by big-sounding names: love and fear, for instance...Not to mention the fact that this book is great fun to read. It is relentlessly compelling in the way that mystery stories can sometimes be.” —Artvoice

“It's a mark of how good Schroder is that, upon finishing it, I immediately went out and read the rest of her work.”  —Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine

“[A] profound meditation on history and fatherhood, and the many identities we take on in our lives.”    —East Bay Express

“A lyrical and poetic novel about the adverse ramifications of a little white lie that follows its teller throughout his life.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“Gaige has a gift for probing love’s complexities.” —Brown Alumni Magazine

“[A]n excellent feat of storytelling, creating a flawed and compelling character who is at once distinct and individual and a symbol of our society.”  —National Post


“Heartbreaking. . .could be O My Darling author Amity Gaige's breakout work. Starring a doggedly compelling lead character and Gaige's signature smooth prose, this novel wows with its exacting, subtle grace. . .She mixes warmth, lovely tenderness and wit with fear and loathing, nakedness and shame, moving her narrative swiftly to an end that hits like a punch in the gut. . . .” —Bookpage

“Schroder is a beautifully told story about how a father's undeniable love for his young child can be distorted by the pressure he experiences at the thought of being cut off from her. . .we all are destined to fall short of our expectations, to fail to match our lovingly painted self-portraits, some of us more dramatically and tragically than others. It's but one of many penetrating insights that transport Amity Gaige's novel from the realm of mere artifice to the status of real art.” —Book Reporter

“A story that manages to be perceptive as well as deceptive, a story that is clever, erudite and funny.” —Doug Johnstone, Big Issue magazine (UK) 

“Terrific. . .Schroder grabs you early on, holds you with its lyrical prose and surprising insights and lingers in the mind long afterward.” —The Pittsburgh Post Gazette
 

 “With Schroder, Gaige has created a narrator who, while flawed and frustrating, is intensely lovable. . .Schroder is a touching story of parental alienation.” —Wisconsin State Journal

“Gaige injects her narrative with a good deal of gentle humor while exploring serious themes such as identity. . .an accomplished novel.”  —bookhugger.co.uk (UK)

“Prepare to be captivated by Schroder, a riveting novel by Amity Gaige with a unique and incredibly creative voice. . .Schroder is a book to be digested slowly, reread and discussed. It's quite a wild ride, but the miles fly by with Amity Gaige at the wheel.”  —The Missourian

“It's a fine line, sometimes, between disturbing and enrapturing. Amity Gaige's new novel, Schroder, treads that thrilling line-swiftly, and on tiptoe—for 270 pages. It is impossible to put down...Despite his criminal behavior, our intimacy with Eric makes his behavior, and this story, more tragic than enraging. Does he love his daughter? We know that he thinks he does. But does carting her across state lines—in a stolen car, no less—constitute love? Who's to say? Schroder certainly doesn't give us an easy answer. But it digs deeply, satisfyingly, disturbingly into the question...she's created a riveting tale, at once infuriating, heartbreaking and human.”  —The Denver Post

“Schroder is a book unlike any other, with characters that will be in your head for days to come. A compelling read.”  —Lauren Turner, Press Association & Irish Examiner

“Gaige creates a fascinating and complex character in Erik, as he moves from the eccentric and slightly irresponsible father to a desperate man at the end of his rope. . .[an] expert exploration of the immigrant experience, alienation, and the unbreakable bond between parent and child.”  —Booklist

“Amity Gaige has written a flawless book. It does not contain a single false note. Playful and inventive, Schroder movingly depicts the ways we confound our own hearts—how even with the best intentions, we fail to love those closest to us as well as we wish we could. Eric Schroder should take his place among the most charismatic and memorable characters in contemporary fiction, and Amity Gaige her place among the most talented and impressive writers working today.”  —David Bezmozgis, author of Natasha and Other Stories and The Free World

“Brilliantly written. . .What could be a hackneyed novelistic trope—the confessional letter—is completely transformed in Gaige's sure and insightful hands. . .Schroder is a haunting look at the extreme desire for love and family, and how the mind can justify that need to possess what it cannot have. Almost, just almost, Schroder has us rooting for him.”  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Fascinating. . .In all, we are glad to be along for the ride. And when someone asks Schroder, near the novel's end, 'Do you miss it? I mean, your made-up life?'—we can assume that, in large part, he does. We can also confess, now we know Schroder so well, that we do too.”    —Buffalo News

“Amity Gaige's Schroder is a triumph of voice. Part road trip escapade, part liar's lament, this absorbing, expertly crafted book takes the form of a self-serving but moving apologia written in an Albany jail cell by an untrustworthy but genuinely heartbroken father and ex-husband with astonishingly bad judgment. . . .” —Barnes & Noble Review

“You will not want to put this book down. You will want to read it in one big gulp. This is a bullet of a novel, aimed at our pieties about parenthood and familial love. To those who know Gaige's first two novels, it's no surprise she’s produced another stunner. To those who don’t, you're in for a treat.”   —Adam Haslett, author of You Are Not a Stranger Here and Union Atlantic

“Narrative diversions into Schroder's study of silence, ‘Pausology’, eventually come to bear upon the great gouging silence of his father and the lacuna left by his mother. When read along these lines, Gaige provides a convincing portrait of a psychological subject whose fissured self is made manifest in a quiet textual instability.”     —Mary Hannity, Spectator magazine (UK) 

“Lyrical prose. A poignant, heartbreaking novel.”   —We Love This Book magazine (UK)

“Gaige's spot-on prose makes this quirky parental drama irresistible.”   —Good Housekeeping

“Quiet and deeply introspective. . .Tender moments of observation, regret and joy—all conveyed in unselfconsciously lyrical prose—result in a radiant meditation on identity, memory and familial love and loss.” —Publisher's Weekly 

“[A] terrifically interesting and compelling story that will make you think, and think again.”   —North Haven Courier

“Strikingly original.”   —Reader's Digest