SOURCE: "Up-front in the Outback," in Manchester Guardian Weekly, August 14, 1988, p. 28.

In the following review, Brooker praises Jolley's skill in evoking the atmosphere of modern Western Australia in Stories.

Capturing the uncharitable expansiveness of the Outback and the tiny provisionality of human attempts to encroach upon it, the best of Elizabeth Jolley's stories will no doubt stand as classics in the rapidly growing Australian canon. Those who have been frightened off by the vociferous bicentenary should take up this book as a gentle and engaging introduction to the antipodean sensibility.

These collected stories depict a modern Australia which is still informed by the needs and aims of the first influx of European exiles and immigrants. Jolley's stories balance comedy and pathos in their betrayal of characters who strive for a sense of rootedness and belonging. The ambiguous promise of the newest New World glitters at the heart of...