SOURCE: “Taking the Measure of the Terror of Isolation,” in Commonweal, Vol. 81, No. 8, November 13, 1964, p. 241-42.

In the following positive review, Greene discusses the common themes that tie together the stories in The Burnt Ones.

Every living short story, as Elizabeth Bowen reminds us, demands a measure of experiment. Today, what narrows the range of some practitioners is that they pit technical bravery against their need to document a lost paradise. In this contest, invention too often becomes the first casualty. Most of us have read quite enough narratives with a “My Days as an Unlicensed Dentist in Detroit” format. Such nostalgia Mr. White vigorously dismisses. Seven of these stories occur in his own Australia; the rest introduce people who live in the Mediterranean world. Initially, perhaps, one frets about the identity of the wallaby, and what is signified by the ugly word “fridge,” but this man's imagination...