'A bracing and beautiful novel … I recommend it as an unputdownable and richly rewarding read, an extended ethical work-out of the classiest kind.'

Helen Garner

'Her fine analytical intelligence is matched by compelling, rhythmic prose … Dissection reads like a moral thriller, a bulletin from the war zone that is modern living. You'll never think of your GP in the same way again.'

Amanda Lohrey (The Monthly)

'A tiny gem of a novel … Dissection is a deeply empathetic story.'

Claire Sutherland (Herald Sun/Daily Telegraph/Sunday Times)

'This is a thoughtful and revealing portrait of a woman's mid-life descent into a mire of self-doubt, and her first hesitant steps towards a new equilibrium.'

Diane Stubbings (Canberra Times)

'Well paced, spare, concentrated.'

Brenda Niall (Age)

'From page one, her prose has an unmistakable ring of authenticity. This writer knows what she is talking about … McBride's professional crisis and her heartache [have] an immediacy that is balanced by her meditations. It is quiet strength that is celebrated in this novel: courage that can all too easily be overlooked.'

Dorothy Johnston (Sydney Morning Herald)

‘Jacinta Halloran has produced a strangely compelling account of a complex woman facing a series of failures in her life that just might be her most poignant triumphs.’

Kevin Brophy

‘Dissection is a perfectly judged and beautifully written account … a pensive and probing character study, a portrait of quiet despair and stoicism.’

Judges, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards

'This is a powerful and elegant meditation on the power of one mistake to destroy a life – and an impressive study of an unravelling mind.'

Jo Case (Readings Newsletter)

‘Dissection is the most engaging novel I’ve read in quite some time … Zen monks talk about live words and dead words … and Jacinta’s words are live. They have the urgency of truth and you just know the author had to write this book in order to stay sane — it’s not a manufactured work … What I liked best was the rhythm of the prose … Above all, Dissection succeeds because it brings news — which is what I want from a novel.’

(Amanda Lohrey)

'the book is hard to put down ... an original and thought-provoking subject, and one that alerts the reader to the expectations they bring to their 15 minutes with their all-too-human GP.'

Katherine England (Adelaide Advertiser)

'[Dissection] dissects morally complex issues of life and death with a deceptively simple touch, using telling domestic detail to bring its characters and settings vividly to life on the page. The prose is clean, crisp, precise; as if carved by a scalpel. It might be the instinctual approach of a writer used to dealing with weighty issues in succinct fifteen-minute blocks.'

Jo Case (Australian Book Review)

'This is a powerful, heart-wrenching story, and it is beautifully written.'

Susan Currie (Media & Culture)