Foden's award-winning first novel received high praise from critics for its fascinating topic as well as for the deft manner in which its author handled the story's ethical issues and the sometimes gruesome details surrounding the violent rule of Uganda's Idi Amin. Peter Wolfe, writing in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, calls the novel "stunning" and "surehanded," and according to Margaret Flanagan in Booklist, the novel is "packed with moral ambiguity [and] the dynamic narrative provides a vivid portrait of one of the most surrealistic despots in modern African history."

Chris King, writing in Newsday, is not as enamored of Foden's narrative. King complains that, while many episodes including Amin are "hilarious," they eventually become predictable. Foden's use of childhood flashbacks "is a dubious narrative decision that weakens the satire," according to King. King compares the book to the novel Forrest Gump, in which "a fool...