José Donoso brings to ["Coronation"] … a caustic and satirical bent for the macabre. Not since the appearance in this country of Muriel Spark's "Memento Mori" have the foibles of the senile been exposed in such a mordant and, in the end, comic fashion. It is a cruel and amusing book, the satire no less effective when flaying the useless aristocracy than when examining the anguish of an old family tottering on the brink of catastrophe.

Donoso's [is a] withering, gruesome book….