[In the following evaluation of The Mistress, and Other Stories, Pomer compares Berriault's work to that of American writer Mary McCarthy and praises Berriault's examination of human motivation.]

[The Mistress, and Other Stories] contains a small masterpiece called "Death Of A Lesser Man". Not since [American writer] Mary McCarthy's Ghostly Father, I Confess have I read such a fascinating dissection of a certain aspect of the female personality. The subject of Miss McCarthy's study was the kind of woman who needs to reassure herself constantly by securing the attention of every man she meets; in "Death Of A Lesser Man" the heroine's nature is strongly narcissistic. Gina Berriault is knowing and she is exact—in all the twistings and turnings, the shades of feeling and motivation, the impingement on one another of fantasy and reality.

Miss Berriault's stories have been published in Mademoiselle, Scribner's, Paris Review, Harper's Bazaar, Saturday Evening Post, Contact, Esquire and San Francisco Review. As this list suggests, her style and approach are fashionably sophisticated. The humans she so shrewdly observes are mostly inhabitants of California; they include rural and urban, old and young, Negro and white. Several of these stories—"Myra", "Around The Dear Ruin", "The Stone Boy"—are first-rate. "Anna Lisa's Nose" and "Felis Catus" are clever, funny and cutting. I also liked the slighter "Nights In The Gardens Of Spain".

One always quarrels, I suppose, with the arrangement of a collection; it is a puzzle to find that so many of them put their worst foot forward. The title story of this volume makes a weak beginning, and since reading a number of stories by one person can produce a cumulative effect, "The Mistress" would probably stand a chance of appearing less superficial if placed elsewhere. It is followed, however, by a more promising story and then by several of the very good ones. Miss Berriault cuts cleanly through defenses and self-delusions to lay bare the ego and human motivation. This exposure will make some people cringe, but I think it would be safe to say that anyone who likes Mary McCarthy's fiction will read this collection with pleasure.