The Bible of the Beasts of the Little Field is [Susan Fromberg Schaeffer's] fifth book of poetry, yet she still seems to have no particular poetic voice. The reader never knows who the speaker is, since she's willing to give almost nothing of herself. Thus, the result is hollow form—and even the form is sloppy: chopped up prose is set in regular stanzas, filled with cliche after cliche. She seems to have no conception of which images work well together….

For the most part, these poems begin with trivialities and attempt to make them crucial…. Her attempt at a high (biblical) language, most blatant in the long title poem, fails because of this same triviality of concerns. Her writing becomes almost a parody of itself. The device of a high biblical stance works for a poet such as James Wright, because behind Wright's poems is a solid rooting in the spiritual; the poem's situation is important because the reader has no trouble seeing it as an allegory for something much deeper. Such is not the case in Schaeffer's poems.

Then, of course, there are the fashionable female stereotypes which every best-selling poetry book needs: Bridal Picture, Lady At Night, Lady With Zebra, Woman On Peacock. It's hard to think of anything more contrived than these obvious plays on language…. (p. 10)

The banality of concerns is exhibited still further in The Queen of Egypt, Schaeffer's first collection of short fiction…. I think it's indicative that the worst story in the book is also the one where she attempts to satirize the writer's predicament: The Exact Nature of Plot. Near the beginning she describes an ordinary housewife at work on her first novel….

As the writing process continues, the woman starts to forget the things around her—like the name of the baby, or whether the baby is actually hers, whether she made her husband dinner. Suddenly a strange woman appears before her, who turns out to be her mother….

Finally the story deteriorates into a game of musical chairs, where the mother and supposed husband grab her chair and start typing; the voices and the typing are mechanical. She still worries about having forgotten the details pertaining to her husband and children, but it doesn't matter because she can always look up their names and ages in the novel, which is done now, right on schedule.

The two novellas which begin the book have the same problem of presenting the character in an overly egocentric vacuum…. All the material is fascinating, but Schaeffer simply dangles it before our eyes as bait and doesn't develop any of it.

The second novella, The Queen of Egypt, begins as an interesting probe into the uselessness of extreme wealth and extreme beauty in a 20th century Brooklyn family who pretends to be living in 19th century England. During the first half of the story, relationships—or the lack of them—are intelligently and sensitively established….

The second half, however, is nothing but superficial political farce. I won't bore the reader with details; suffice it to say that here Schaeffer proves that, though capable of sensitivity and depth, her ultimate concern is with the trivial.

One would think that the short story form would give her a chance to make use of the trivial events of life, but the four short stories in section two, roughly fifteen pages each, are surprisingly careful character sketches—albeit each is a study of one character, while those the protagonist relates to are like cardboard figures moved about the stage-set to keep the drama properly paced. The main character in each story thus ends up seeming as self-centered and uncaring as the characters in the novellas do.

The third section, Parables, might better be called 'little mysteries'. With the exception of the first story, On The Nature of Plot, this section contains the most interesting writing in the book. My favorite, The Yglesias of Ignatius Livingstone Island, is an excellent portrayal of characters whose lives are controlled by superstition and family morality codes. Perhaps because this story is set in an environment alien to Schaeffer, she is able to transform trivialities into important symbolic events. The gothic air of mystery is sustained throughout, proving Schaeffer capable of excellent writing once she herself gets interested in the people she's writing about. (p. 11)