first review of Mr Wigg

from Bookseller and Publisher:

Mr Wigg (Inga Simpson, Hachette,   July) reviewed by John Purcell

The book that comes to mind on   having finished Inga Simpson’s Mr Wigg is Harper Lee’s To Kill a   Mockingbird. They share nothing much in common; Mr Wigg is set in   country Australia in 1970, is about a man at the end of his long life, and   the most contentious issue touched on is the sacking of Bill Lawry as captain   of the Australian cricket team. But even so, that warm feeling that comes   from having read something that has strengthened or even reawakened a sense   of what is right and good about the world overwhelmed me on closing the book.   And also, I suspect, though it isn’t actually true of Mr Wigg, both   stories are from the point of view of the child. I know nothing of Inga   Simpson, and I may easily have been tricked by her wonderful art, but I think   this book is in some way an account of someone, and somewhere, she loved as a   young person. Whatever its genesis, Mr Wigg is beautiful. A strange   word to use, I know, but it is what it is.