So successful (and Lord, so painful!) is the progress of this sparingly written book [Ending] … that I forgot it was fiction, and began to think of it as Mrs. Wolitzer's own story, which it is not, so far as I know. It is a book well worth your time, if you can bring yourself to still another description of the horrors of dying by cancer, but more especially if you admire good writing.

Doris Grumbach, "On Dying and Other Matters," in The New Republic (reprinted by permission of The New Republic; © 1974 The New Republic, Inc.), Vol. 171, Nos. 6 & 7, August 10 & 17, 1974, pp. 32-3.