SOURCE: A review of The Long Falling, in The New York Times, September 13, 1998, p. 20.

[In the following review, Mahoney remarks that Ridgway has "seamlessly" woven "incendiary issues … into a story that is at times excruciatingly suspenseful."]

Grace Quinn is kind and gentle, a harmless woman, really. She lives in rural Ireland in fear of a husband who holds her responsible both for the drowning death of their son Sean and for the homosexuality of their surviving son, Martin. To put it mildly, Grace is long-suffering. For years she has endured appalling verbal abuse and vicious beatings from her often drunken husband—until one night she takes matters into her own hands, climbs into the family car and kills this horrible man in the way he himself once killed a young woman while driving blind drunk on a dark and winding road. Given the circumstances, Grace Quinn's act is...