SOURCE: Simmons, James. “Sex and Oil in Argentina.” Spectator 277, no. 8775 (21 September 1996): 52.

In the following review, Simmons praises Tóibín's writing style in The Story of the Night, but expresses disappointment regarding the “public side” of the novel's plot.

If Colm Tóibín were a singer you would say he had perfect pitch. [The Story of the Night] leads you through its somewhat meandering plot clearly and tactfully and interestingly, with no hint of obscurity, no bombast, no showing off … and yet it is original and disturbing, with a satisfying ring of imaginative truth. I know that this Irishman was once a journalist and has written a book about walking the border between Southern and Northern Ireland. I hear he spent ten years in Barcelona, but that would hardly prepare you for a book set in Argentina during the invasion of the Malvinas with a good deal...