SOURCE: Allen, Bruce. “American Short Fiction Today.” New England Review 4, no. 3 (spring 1982): 486-88.

In the following excerpt, Allen praises the stories in In the Garden of the North American Martyrs for their depth and power.

Tobias Wolff, whose In the Garden of the North American Martyrs is the best of the individuals' books reviewed here, is a really rather frighteningly accomplished writer. The twelve quietly realistic, beautifully detailed and subtle stories collected here are about moments of crisis in the lives of tightly coiled, introspective, self-distrusting (sometimes self-despising) people. Though he's equally good with both men and women, Wolff sometimes strikes false notes (his characterization of the victimized teacher in the title story) or waxes almost-sentimental (the golden-honeymooners in “Maiden Voyage”). Usually, however, his dramatic directness and eye for colloquial detail bring utter conviction to his stories' forceful situations: a solitary driver's new understanding, following his adventures with...