All Around Atlantis, the short-story collection in which “Someone to Talk To” appears, was critically well-received. Two of the stories from the collection, “Across the Lake” and “Mermaids,” won O. Henry Awards. “Someone to Talk To,” though not considered the best story of the collection by many critics, was occasionally mentioned in reviews. A reviewer from Kirkus Reviews calls the story “superb,” and R. Z. Sheppard, in a review for Time magazine, specifically praises the character Beale: “In 'Someone to Talk To,' a journalist who won't stop gabbing about himself long enough to ask a question is worthy of Evelyn Waugh.” Gail Caldwell of the Boston Globe, however, felt that the three stories in the collection set in Central America “suffer from a pedantic overkill on the displaced-imperialist theme.” Referring specifically to “Someone to Talk To,” she writes, “I felt I was reading a workshop...