A joyous fairytale about familial dysfunction and our connection to Mother Earth. Webster writes hallucinatory prose with zany gusto ... This is an exuberantly written novel. We need more like it in this country.
—Quill and Quire (STARRED REVIEW)

Webster has written a vast, exuberant and optimistic epic about the ebbs and flows of the lava-like oils that lubricate the world’s engine, emphasizing the transformative power of love.
—National Post

Luscious and positively dripping with style (and honey), The Lava in My Bones is a frank, often poetic exploration of sexuality, maturity, family, and abandonment ... The imagery presented in this novel, coupled with Webster’s perfunctory, delicate, and strangely lyrical language, is like none other I’ve read this year.
—Backlisted

The Lava in My Bones is, quite simply, a fabulous book ... “Magical,” “compelling,” “electric,” complex, troubling, and contradictory, The Lava in My Bones is a book that I will read repeatedly throughout my life, illuminating crap times and hard knocks with the seismically wild, deeply relevant and earnest irreverence of it all.
—Lambda Literary

A lucid, wildly imaginative, delightfully unpredictable book.
—Art Threat

This book is utterly beautiful in its strangeness … This sensuous tale is both removed from and grounded in the physical, calling attention to our mineral and emotional deficiencies. A brilliant read. 
—The Coast (Halifax)

“As a virtuoso writer not afraid to take risks, Webster’s debut is impressive.”
--Lisa Fitterman, The Montreal Gazette

“Webster pierces the tissues of propriety with an off-the-wall-lunacy I’ve never quite encountered…The erotic climax is a poignant snapshot of cultural solitudes.”
--Jim Bartley, The Globe and Mail 

 “Let’s get to the gist of it: Barry Webster is a lexical virtuoso….The Sound of All Flesh is an arresting collection from a writer well-honed not only in his craft but in the spectral machinations of words themselves.”
--Faustus Salvador, Montreal Review of Books 

“The Sound of All Flesh is a powerful collection, full of unabashed discussions of sex and relationships told in vigorous and colourful prose.”
--Nathan Stark, Niagara Pulse 

“Webster’s debut collection should be applauded for its willingness to take risks and to have some fun along the way.”
--Micah Toub, Quill and Quire 

“Every so often there are books like The Sound of All Flesh that are reminders of the fact that literature can—when injected with the proper dosage of words—heighten your senses.”
--Andrea Paré, The Manitoban 

“His fiction ought to be commended in refusing the nice, familiar, safe contours of conventional Canadian realism.”
--Brett Josef Grubisic, The Vancouver Sun 

 “Barry Webster is a writer who plays with storytelling mixing the real with the surreal. From unstable life Webster makes art.”
--Nancy Wigston, Books in Canada 

“The pieces range from very straightforward to playful, extraordinary and surreal. In the balance rests the sense of a lifetime of words and notes melting into one another on the page.”
--Isa Tousignant, Hour (Montreal) 

“Warning: The following stories contain nudity, violence, pianos, amazingly radiant verbalising, venomous weather, and funny clanking noises in the tiled washrooms of the nation. Viewer discretion is advised.”
-- Mark Anthony Jarman (author of Ireland's Eye)

“Barry Webster's stories constitute a magical glass window through which we see more clearly into the human story than with ordinary prose. Webster's fiction neither magnifies nor distorts, but its clarity of vision permits a reader to see the longing for a better life that underlies ordinary existence.”
-- Tom Wayman (author of Did I Miss Anything)

"Webster hears the dissonant sound of the apocalyptic rumblings and explores myriad ramifications that it has on different individuals."
--Beverley Haun, Canadian Quarterly of Criticism and Review  

“Imagine a world threatened by clowns, enriched by music and teetering on the edge of change and you have a taste of the rich offering in this strong debut collection.”
--Laurie Elmquist, Monday Magazine (Victoria)

“On ne peut que se réjouir de voir enfin réunis dans un même recueil plusieurs des excellentes nouvelles de Barry Webster…Bien peu d’auteurs osent explorer un imaginaire qui sorte de nos balises quotidiennes car Barry Webster n’hésite pas à sauter à pieds joints dans un océan de fantasmagories des plus surprenantes et tonifiantes. »
--Benoît Migneault, Fugues. (Montréal)