“A Window on the Underworld,” in Women's Review of Books, Vol. XII, No. 7, April, 1995, p. 5.

In the following review, Larson discusses the characterization and themes of Phillips's Shelter.

Machine Dreams, Jayne Anne Phillips' first novel, was one of those books that changed my life. The coming-of-age story of a rural West Virginia girl named Danner, the narrative is interwoven with the stories of Danner's parents and of her brother, who is killed in Vietnam. Perhaps the book struck such a chord in me because I read it at a time when I was just beginning to realize how much the unresolved conflicts of my parents' lives carried over into my own. Or maybe it was Phillips' style: she jumped from first to third person, shifted between the perspectives of the different characters, told much of the story through letters, all with an assurance that took your breath away...