In the following essay, Gessel sees Katherine Anne Porter's novel Ship of Fools as revealing the delusions of the western world and offering "brief salvation" to its characters through unsentimentalized sex.

In the following essay, Liberman examines the critical reception of Ship of Fools and considers the essential characteristics of the novel as a literary form.

In the following review, Kaufmann cites shortcomings in Ship of Fools, particularly concerning theme and character development.

Katherine Anne Porter, who died last September …, was best known to the public for her one and only novel, Ship of Fools, which, when published in 1962, immediately became a best seller. (p. 1) Ship of Fools is a brilliant book. Porter herself was fond of it, and she pointed out to carping critics that it developed a major theme present in most of her work—the theme of the life of illusion, of self-deception. But it is not a great novel. The structure is loosely episodic and the crowded cast o...