"Pearl revels in wickedness, presenting a literary world in which a successful writer's haughtiness is both encouraged and rewarded." The New Yorker
"[A] cleverly plotted literary satire . . . . the narrative, which melds the improbability of farce with a claustrophobic horror reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe, grips the readers and never lets go."- The Boston Globe
"Gripping and relentlessly entertaining." - Wall Street Journal
"With cheek and wit, Pearl delivers a serpentine-coiled plot and convincing characters that make this novel hard to put down." - Library Journal (starred review)
"Through clever twists, including a mistaken award with devastating consequences, Pearl brings to life a character whose desperation for success is dangerously palpable. The Award also delivers sardonic humor . . . Pearl creates a thrilling, introspective, entertaining world." - Booklist
"A publishing-industry satire in the vein of Andrew Lipstein's Last Resort, The Award takes a dim view of its characters' ambitions. Every bad and selfish choice made by the protagonist just adds to the pleasure of it." Vulture
"Matthew Pearl, the much-loved writer of The Dante Club, among many other books, has given us in this new novel a world of writers and intrigue . . . . This is a book that feels, on the surface, like it's about the fault in our literary stars but is actually to borrow another writer's famous phrasing in ourselves." Pittsburgh Post Gazette
"The Award begins as a wryly funny satire of thwarted literary ambition, but it quickly evolves into something darker and more disturbing. Matthew Pearl's addictive and propulsive novel has the twisted nightmare logic of a Patricia Highsmith thriller."
- Tom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of Tracy Flick Can't Win and Mrs. Fletcher
"The Award is a propulsive and gripping novel about the literary world, ambition, deception and murder and the twisted corner where they all intersect. Matthew Pearl grabs you from the first sentence and doesn't let go." - Laura Dave, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Night We Lost Him
"A darkly entertaining satire set in present-day Cambridge, Mass., The Award by Matthew Pearl tells the story of an unscrupulous writer's improbable rise to the upper echelons of literary society. It is a superb caricature of a ruthlessly ambitious young man who will stop at nothing, even murder, to claw his way to the top . . . . Marvelously twisted." - Shelf Awareness (starred review)
"Deviously entertaining." - Kirkus Reviews
"Pearl takes literary ambition to macabre extremes in this gleefully wicked satire...Readers won't be able to resist this." - Publishers Weekly
"Pearl takes a knife to the publishing industry and its much-ballyhooed literary prizes, offering a keen-eyed portrait of ambition, jealousy, and desperation." - The Millions
"Think The Talented Mr. Ripley set over the course of a cold, dark winter in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It's tense, it's a pageturner." Bestselling author John Searles, The TODAY Show
"A thriller where catharsis and darkness go hand in hand in the rat race that is literary ambition." - Harvard Magazine
"Ooh, you're going to want to get your hands on The Award and curl up with it . . . . It starts out seeming like just another one of those lightly parodic novels with a protagonist who's a thwarted writer-but twist! It's actually a Highsmithian work of psychological suspense and murder." New York, Dinner Party newsletter
"Matthew Pearl's gratifying and unapologetically cynical novel, The Award, turns a spotlight on the world of American publishing and rotates it . . . . Suffice it to say that though the literary world may have 'no morality in it,' as a character laments, one can't deny the virtues of a novel this good."- BookPage
"May remind readers of Percival Everett's novel Erasure . . . . [Pearl's] evocation of the vicious, condescending Hale . . . is particularly amusing.," The Minnesota Star Tribune
"Satire and mystery swirl with arrogance, the creative process and unchecked ambition in Matthew Pearl's amusing and realistic The Award. Pearl turns a delightfully poisoned pen toward writers and the writing life." Sun Sentinel
"In Matthew Pearl's brilliant and cunning new novel, The Award, David Trent represents anyone out there who has ever wanted something for as long as they could remember only to be constantly disappointed . . . The Award is perhaps the most devilishly scathing indictment of the publishing industry that I have ever read. Captured in the guise of a psychological thriller, the plight and journey that David Trent takes is truly edge-of-your seat suspenseful. In the hands of Matthew Pearl, it becomes a scandalous read that is memorable and well worth devouring." Bookreporter