'Intriguing … What slowly emerges is a picture of a life of intense, frequently self-induced claustrophobia … This cool tone is one of the strengths of the fascinating and chilling tale … The end of their story is extraordinary - a bit of real-life magic realism' – Joanna Trollope - Sunday Times 27 October 1996 'An odd book but compelling … The author, like a wily junk-dealer, simply lifts the lid and lets the customer brush away the cobwebs … It is the story of Joan [Kappey]'s ill-conceived, late-blossoming passion for a much younger man which sets the ink coursing through the biographer's pen … Ordinary lives are not the usual grit for a biographer's mill. And yet it is the very obscurity of the sisters' existence which touches the heart and haunts the memory' – Elisabeth Luard - The Times 9-15 November 1996 'The anatomy of an obsessive and unrequited love is one of the most original books of the year' - Robert Harris - Books of the Year – The Times 30 November 1996 'The literary curiosity of the year … a glance into the box-room of a family's history that served as a touching reminder of the sacrifices made - nearly always by women - on the altar of middle-class respectability' – Anthony Howard - Books for Christmas - Sunday Times 24 November 1996 'What is special about Hugo Vickers's account is its sympathy … His portrait of Joan Kappey is heart-wrenching … What stays in the mind is the spectre of generations of Joan Kappeys, reared to live in a vacuum, doing nothing … books like The Kiss will remind us what was endearing about such pitiful lives' – Carmen Callil - Daily Telegraph 9 November 1995 'It is Vickers's masterpiece to date and a surprising new departure for the chronicler of Beaton, Garbo, Vivien Leigh etc' – Andrew Barrow - Books of the Year - The Spectator 23 November 1996 'Hugo Vickers has built a reputation as an assiduous chronicler of celebrity. Now, in a remarkable departure, his own original talents as a writer are revealed in a most unusual book, which, if it were not so diligently documented, might seem to belong in the realms of fiction … Such is Vickers's gift of sympathy … that he draws the reader into sharing his fascination for a now-vanished breed of imperial relics' – Hugh Massingberd - Evening Standard 11 November 1996 'The Kiss's evocation of loaded silences, stifled ambition and long, empty days is touched by the spirit of Chekov' – Max Egremont - The Spectator 16 November 1996 'This true and entrancing story vividly depicts a class of people whose values, virtues and aspirations have long vanished' – Val Hennessy - Chic 1 November 1996 'This touching tale of provincial life might have appealed to Turgenev … The Kiss, which deserves to become a minor classic, is a poignant tribute to a sort of life, a class and a certain way of being English that daily disappears a little more' – Michael Hall - Country Life 12 December 1996 'Compulsive … Vickers unearths all her scraps and documents, piecing together her obsession with a man named Dick, as well as sisterly venom bordering on the murderous' – Lucy Atkins - The Guardian November 1995 'I read it with mounting fondness for the author who is unabashed about his lifelong interest in OAPs' – Mary Killen - Books of the Year - The Spectator 23 November 1996 'This is a book which proves surprisingly hard to forget' – Lorna Hogg - RTE Guide 8 November 1996 'The Kiss is a sad, touching tale of wasted lives' – Jessica Mann - Literary Review November 1996 'It's an intriguing story of pathological, unrequited love' – Louise Carpenter - Best Books - The Week 10 July 2005 The Kiss (1996) Hardback (UK) 1996 Paperback (UK) 1997 Winner of the Stern Silver Pen Award for Non-Fiction 1996