SOURCE: “On Killiney Hill,” in Times Literary Supplement, No. 5093, November 10, 2000, p. 25.

In the following negative review, Dallat criticizes the inaccurate details, unbelievable elements, and broad characterizations in The Gingerbread Woman.

Jennifer Johnston's novels, and contemporary Irish writing generally, are replete with relationships which are dogged by differences of religion and culture. The Gingerbread Woman reverses expectations only in that it focuses on an encounter between a Southern Protestant and a Northern Catholic. The meeting, in the opening pages, between a young Glens of Antrim man, walking his dog on Killiney Hill, and a woman he believes is about to commit suicide, creates an awkward set of obligations and—avowedly non-sexual—affections, nimbly charted by Johnston over the next few days of their shared lives towards a resolution that is surprisingly credible.

Clara Barry and Laurence McGrane are opposites in every respect. The former's middle-class upbringing has given her...