Barry Hannah, who wrote the extravagantly praised Airships, is a master of the short form. Yet [Ray] often reads like a collection of sketches. It is diffuse—characters are introduced once and forgotten, incidents go nowhere—and this failure of continuity deprives the book of the cumulative power it should have. Ray is laconic, mean, raunchy, and very funny, but not as moving as it means to be. (p. 72)

Ronald Nevans, "Fiction: 'Ray'," in Saturday Review (copyright © 1980 by Saturday Review; all rights reserved; reprinted by permission), Vol. 7, No. 15, November, 1980, pp. 70, 72.