"A tour de force of a non-repeatable kind. We are shown the physical and mental tribulations of a suburban housewife, who sees her lumpish husband being lost to the village siren. Another woman, the wife's free-living and free-thinking friend, Vera Sylvaine, has an influence over her that leads to the final disaster and the astonishing denouement... A prize piece."

— Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, A Catalogue of Crime