[Jean Stafford] combines an intellectuality somewhat similar to that of Mary McCarthy with a sensitivity and a style reminiscent of Katherine Anne Porter. She has published three very good novels—Boston Adventure (1944), The Mountain Lion (1947), and The Catherine Wheel (1952)—all of which deal with the theme of the adjustment of children or young people to the adult world, as well as [several volumes of short stories]. (pp. 312-13)

Miss Stafford's critics have noted that her stories often portray cruelty and suffering, both mental and physical, and that they reveal a preoccupation with characters whose idiosyncrasies, personal misfortunes, or physical afflictions turn them into lonely, isolated people, and even, in some instances, into freaks or grotesques. The queerest, as well as one of the most vividly drawn, of these characters is Ramona Dunn, the terribly obese girl, at once both contemptible and pathetic, in "The Echo and the Nemesis," who compensates for or rationalizes her gluttony by identifying with the beautiful twin sister she has invented, the image of her former thin self….

The loneliness and suffering of some of Miss Stafford's characters results when they are unable or refuse to adjust themselves after being removed from a familiar environment into an alien one. In "A Summer Day" an orphan Indian boy, sent from his home in Missouri to an Indian reservation school in Oklahoma, can think only of how he can assert his independence and escape. (p. 313)

But these stories are hardly profound and perhaps even a little contrived. Much more characteristic of Miss Stafford's work are the stories of alienation and loss. If they seem sometimes overly depressing, they have truth, and they are the work of a highly talented and disciplined artist. (p. 315)