SOURCE: Dunford, Judith. “Magical Mystery Tour.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (5 September 1999): 11.

In the following review, Dunford contends that Headlong demonstrates Frayn's abilities as an intelligent, funny, and clever writer.

What would we readers do without the infernally brilliant writers of Britain, of which there fortunately seems to be a limitless supply? Certainly one of the very cleverest is Michael Frayn. Thirteen plays, including the fondly remembered Noises Off. Journalism. Novels that have made critics thumb through their thesauri to find new synonyms for “smart” and “funny.”

Headlong, his ninth novel, will not give their Roget'ses any time back on the bookshelf. It purports to be the recollections of Martin Clay, an academic philosopher careening a little recklessly into art history, of an extraordinary episode in his life. The curtain rises as Clay, his wife, Kate, who is a genuine art historian, and their small baby arrive at...