SOURCE: A review of The Wellspring, in Library Journal, Vol. 121, No. 1, January, 1996, p. 104.

In the following review, Stenstrom favorably assesses The Wellspring.

In this her fifth collection [The Wellspring], awardwinning Olds surveys her life from conception to middle age with the laserlike attention to emotional and physical detail that is her hallmark. The book's first two sections focus on childhood and adolescence; the self-portrait Olds paints is of a voracious and egocentric child who thirsts for attention and is sensually attuned to all she experiences. Her recollections of her father's casual cruelties (he composed a humiliating tongue twister for his lisping daughter to recite at Sunday breakfast), though chilling, are dispassionately recounted. The second two sections are devoted to parenthood and conjugal love. Olds's po ems about her children throb with love and pathos, and her paeans to an emotionally and physically satisfying marriage are among the book's...