You Have to Be Careful in the Land of the Free

Critical reception

Irvine Welsh, writing in the Guardian, highlights Kelman's originality and technical ability, and notes that this challenging novel which deals with the theme of "our identity and status within the globalised order" is "the book that many hand-wringing liberals have always wanted to write but are manifestly ill-equipped to undertake". In his review, Welsh concludes that "this brave and provocative novel deserves to be widely read".

Dwight Garner in the New York Times wrote that "this novel happens to be very, very fine -- his best since How Late It Was, and in some ways his most angrily profound book, period. It's not just a first-rate drinking novel and a first-rate elegiac failure novel and a first-rate Fred Exley-ish novel about loserdom (loserdom being the song Kelman was born to sing). It may also be the best -- it's certainly the most paranoid -- book we've had thus far about the political and social reverberations of 9/11 in this country.".