["The Living End" is] the work of a man who is desperately trying to joke away death….

[Any] little thing that may go wrong with "The Living End" is justified by the marvelously funny gags and sketches that lie in wait around the next corner. And even in the unlikely event that you get through the first 140 pages without cracking a smile, the novel is worth reading alone for its four-page vision of the Day of Judgment….

But what [God] does because He never found His audience needs the effect of the whole book to be appreciated. So please read it. (p. 248)

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "'The Living End'," in the New York Times, Section III (© 1979 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), May 25, 1979 (and reprinted in Books of the Times, Vol. II, No. 5, 1979, pp. 247-48).