SOURCE: "Deadly Chain of Events," in New York Times Book Review, March 26, 1967, pp. 24-5.

In the following review of Casualties of Peace, Dienstag asserts that O'Brien's "old-fashioned" and clichéd structuring of her novel destroys the effectiveness of her "extraordinary style."

Willa McCord is dreaming. She is walking down a dark street toward her house when a car with two men in it stops flush beside her. One of the men asks the way to a theater. She gives a quick answer, a lie. They drive off. She rushes to her door, but can't find it. The men return. It is now daylight, and there are witnesses, but it doesn't seem to matter. The men get out of the car, closing in for the kill.

So begins Casualties of Peace, a novel about the violence of ordinary life and the victims of that violence, sometimes innocent strangers, sometimes...