Critical response to Brown's short stories has, on the whole, been very positive. John Elliot, writing a review in The Daily Telegraph, proclaims Brown's Driving the Heart and Other Stories a "consistently fine first collection of stories." Elliot praises Brown's deft hand at creating stories that are "intimate without falling into sentimentality." A review of Brown's collection in Publishers Weekly states that he "excels at portraying the life struggles of those with ravaged psychic resources, [and] unique people and their alienated offspring." The review also highlights "Animal Stories", admiring the skill with which Brown writes about mental illness, as well as his use of "bleak humor" to describe Jamie's dying mother.

While Brown's stories can be read as fatalistic and full of despair, Jenifer Berman, writing in the New York Times, argues that they are "linked by a generosity of spirit." In her review of Brown's...