Gary Krist, September 1997
“Such, believe it or not, is the story line of ”Great Apes,” and if it doesn’t sound like your idea of literature, you’re probably not alone. In earlier books, like ”My Idea of Fun” and the story collection ”Grey Area” (in which both Zack Busner and Simon Dykes previously appeared, though in human form), Self made a name for himself as a defiant satirist with a peculiar mastery of the vocabulary of modern neurosis. Cultivating controversy in his life as well as in his work (during his stint as a reporter in the recent British election campaign, he was thrown off John Major’s plane, accused of shooting heroin in the bathroom), he has polarized the reading public both here and in England, earning the usual iconoclast’s reward of rabid denunciations and hyperbolic praise.”
