SOURCE: “Sentences of Life,” in Women's Review of Books, July, 1994, pp. 29-30.

In the following excerpt, Gornick recounts her introduction to and admiration for Paley's fiction, and reviews The Collected Stories.

I remember the first time I laid eyes on a Paley sentence. The year was 1960, the place a Berkeley bookstore, and I a depressed graduate student, leafing restlessly. I picked up a book of stories by a writer I’d never heard of and read: “I was popular in certain circles, says Aunt Rose. I wasn’t no thinner then, only more stationary in the flesh. In time to come, Lillie, don’t be surprised—change is a fact of God. From this no one is excused. Only a person like your mama stands on one foot, she don’t notice how big her behind is getting and sings in the canary’s ear for thirty years...