The Guardian:
French's narrative incorporates all the elements of a funny, Full Monty-ish parable about a little man's war against the system...
French deals well with the practical comedy of living underground (how does one go to the toilet? Is the new-format Guardian still too large to read comfortably in a coffin?). He also writes perceptively about the dangers of making an exhibition of oneself: Aidan's stunt attracts plenty of well-wishers, but also a fair number of perverts, flashers, arsonists and earnest Smiths fans who want to know whether he found inspiration in Morrissey's lyrics.
Yet Aidan's confinement also stands as a metaphor for buried emotion, and there are deeper, more substantial themes beneath the surface. Significantly, this is not the first time French has written about frustrated fathers digging holes for themselves. His debut novel, All This Is Mine, was a largely autobiographical account of growing up in south Wales in the late 1960s and was dominated by the portrait of a ragingly paranoid, inarticulate man who had begun to construct a network of escape tunnels under the house in case there was a nuclear explosion.
French also made a revealing contribution to a collection of memoirs, Four Fathers (Route Press), in which he writes with exceptional candour and honesty about his relationship with his father: "I always disappointed him and he always scared me, his rage and paranoia threatening to overwhelm me if I got too close. I preferred the guilt and pain of distance."
...
Going Under is an unpretentious, accessible comedy about the facelessness of modern corporations and the cheerful stoicism that binds forgotten communities together. It would be easy to imagine it given screen treatment...But it is, above all, a commendable attempt to put into plain words the feelings that most families scarcely acknowledge, let alone express; and a fine example of the things that happen when one dares to think inside the box.
The Herald:
An excellent, incisive modern satire that manages to be touching, funny and thought-provoking simultaneously.
The Big Issue
A triumphant tale of life, loss, hope and family.
Big Issue Cymru
A wonderfully inspiring, gritty but ultimately optimistic story about one man who has the courage to stand up to authority.
Planet
Given that our hero spends most of its three hundred pages in a box, the pace and plotting of this novel are remarkable. French shows beautifully how the complex machinery of the media engages with the story... The novel gets its texture, though, from the stories of the people who come to see Aidan - wellwishers, troublemakers, journalists, desperate people, friends and strangers - at all times of the day and night, and from the thoughts and experiences of Aidan himself. He is indeed, as the delightfully effete Radio Four prsenter, Julian Fanshawe puts it, a symbolic figure, 'neither alive or dead, but somewhere in between... like some latter day Oracle', but he is also in considerable physical discomfort, plagued by bodily functions (no details spared) and horribly prey to the games brains play with their owners when they have nothing else to do. One of the great qualities of this book, as with all good comedy, is that it manages to look awfulness square in the face and still make you laugh. It has an unsentimental faith in people and communities, and is very witty about life in Wales. And, with the radio playing such a prominent role in the eproceedings, it writes its own soundtrack. Snap up the film rights at once.
Reviews for Vintage Paperback edition
Sunday Times
During his subterranean incanceration, Aidan not only attracts a stream of local visitors - becoming an unlikely symbol of hope and identity for the community - but also learns more about himself, his family and his friends than he ever did when he was above ground. The emergence of the protagonists' buried emotions during Aidan's internment is engaging, adding to the humour and compassion of this optimistic tale.
Daily Mail
Funny and relevant, Going Under is at its most touching when exploring the dynamics between Aidan and his friends, the barely concealed power struggles and awkward affection between unreconstructed working-class men.
The Guardian
Ray French's disarming account of an accidental hero is more inventive than most tales of one individual's battle against the corporate machine... the book manages to be both witty and gentle while conveying inescapable economic truths.
Matt Haig:
Going Under is a warm, big-hearted tale with a hero you can’t help but cheer for. This novel hits on various truths about work, family, love and loyalty. But most of all, it’s a thoroughly absorbing read
Frank Cottrell Boyce :
It’s great!
Metro
French skilfully steers this likeable story away from Brassed Off/The Full Monty territory by making it more a journey of personal enlightenment than a simple David vs Goliath battle... it has a deep poignancy…a journey of personal enlightenment…it’s an honest and unaffected tale.
Culture Wars, website of The Institute Of Ideas:
...it describes, with sardonic humour, a country we can all recognise: 'Cardiff was like some old lag lying in the gutter wo had finally, miraculously, won the lottery, and had immediately tarted herself up with all the worst accessories that new money could buy.' Urban regeneration: an ill-considered shibboleth of our times. But this is not a book drenched in disdainful tones. It's more likely to remind you of Brassed Off and The Full Monty, with a squeeze of Simon Pegg. There's even the after-taste of an Ealing comedy. There is pathos and acuity, but not bitterness.
The story arc is clear and satisfying... Surrounded by a vivid, ragbag cast, Aidan digs his hole and buries himself. This isn't any of your airy magical realism - Aidan's coffin is a very practical object. far from escaping life, life comes to peer at him down the shaft he's constructed to the surface. naturally the media get involved and Aidan's celebrity grows. He becomes an emblem of the Everyman, a local hero - an underdog fighting back. Aidan's peculiar form of passive resistance takes us down a path that is not purely comic - there is soul and sadness here too... You think you know where it will take you, but then it surprises you by being a bit more real than you thought it would be.
All This Is Mine
The Daily Telegraph:
'Ray French has written a highly engaging and vivid debut novel, which perfectly captures the wild emotions of boyhood... He has avoided the temptation to fill his story with kitsch period detail, focusing instead on the awkwardness of childhood - from the strangeness of other people's parents to the dawning awareness of the vulnerability of one's own... This is a book that can make the reader shift uncomfortably, a reminder that boyhood is not an idyll but a moral minefield, where a sense of guilt can hang over one's life like a mushroom cloud. It is a richly satisfying piece of storytelling.'
The Guardian:
'French's hilarious dialogue brings the world of this late 60s community to life, as with a sure hand he sketches in poignant views of the joys, sadness and sheer ghastliness of childhood (and children).'
Big Issue in the North:
Ray French's debut is an ode to growing up in troubled times and is evocative of an era that is often overlooked... But the author, who was born in Wales to Irish parents, gives this history lesson a very human touch. Amid the Stand By Me-style childhood camaraderie is a more moving look at what it is to grow up in isolation, starved of good food, resources and the necessary information to make sense of the world. Like Barry Hines' Kestrel For A Knave, All This Is Mine is a novel about what it is to be young, lonely and suffering in silence. [Four stars]
Mark Haddon:
One of the very few writers who can remember precisely what childhood was really like, how crazy and intense it really was. Utterly unpretentious, totally engaging and very funny.
The Leeds Guide:
All This Is Mine is Ray French's first novel. You wouldn't know it. From the first few pages describing the politics of the fist in the school playground, to its startling ending, French has his material well under control. The book moves inexorably onward. Funny, bleak and ultimately satisfying.
The Sunday Tribune (Ireland):
Despite strong competition from Da, Ma Bennett is a magnificent creation. From her we hear the authentic venom of the Irish who were forced to make a living outside of Ireland in the 50s...Watch out for the scene where Ma travels to Cardiff Arms Park to cheer as the Welsh rugby team beat the hell out of the Irish.
Artscene:
...Ray French's debut novel captured me from page one with its energy, and didn't let go as events unfolded around Liam with the breathless wonder and confusion of life seen through the eyes of a ten year old... A Booker prize winner told French, years before he was published, that he couldn't write. Thank God that he didn't give up then, because he bloody well can.
Four Fathers
Blake Morrison:
A fascinating double-take on the experience of being fatherd and then becoming a father yourself - eight short tales full of wit, pathos and insight
Big Issue In The North:
This is, of course, no easy subject matter for any writer. Capturing the impressions made on innocent minds that build an understanding of adulthood, trust and identity is only part of the task, and it's to Route's immense credit that this collection of stories by Ray French, James Nash, Tom Palmer and John Siddique brims with verve, depth and pathos. The opening story lays down an ambitious marker in what is a beautifully moving account of a tight-knit Welsh childhood. It observes the doggedly determined dynamo of energy that is his father performing his daily ten-hour shift at the factory then chopping the wood and hosing and scrubbing the back of the house before bursting into song and opening the Guinness. Ray French brilliantly captures a later sad struggle to reconcile the distance between his childhood and the present, observing his father's frail state, 'his manic energy diminished' and desperately wishing he could hear that auld manic blarney one more time.
Joolz Denby:
This collection of meditations on the nature of fatherhood by writers unafraid to explore their true emotions is a must-read for anyone interested in the strange mysteries of the heart.
Western Mail (Wales):
Brilliantly written and incredibly moving.
The Bookseller:
There's some excellent writing in there.
The Times Literary Supplement:
'If the image of Wales has never quite succeeded in throwing off those blacked-up and lustily singing colliers of How Green Was My Valley, here in an understated prose is the twenty-first century antidote... As the collection progresses, there rises from its blend of comedy and pathos a universalizing, almost mythic quality.'
Cambrensis:
'Every so often, you find a short story collection that is consistently good. This is just such a one, and I guarantee that we'll be hearing more from Ray French... Every one of the thirteen stories has something to offer, and I thoroughly recommend this first but surely not last collection from a talented writer.'