SOURCE: Keefe, Joan Trodden. Review of A Letter to Peachtree and Nine Other Stories, by Benedict Kiely. World Literature Today 63, no. 4 (autumn 1989): 682.

In the following review of A Letter to Peachtree and Nine Other Stories, Keefe praises Kiely's storytelling ability and unique narrative voice.

A writer of parts, Benedict Kiely has practiced his craft with a single-mindedness that is the mark of the professional practitioner. His most recent novel, Nothing Happens in Carmincross (see WLT 61:1, p. 102), seemed to crown his long career; but no, here a couple of years later is his fifth collection of short stories [A Letter to Peachtree and Nine Other Stories]. No minimalist he, for his stories overflow with a vigorous richness of vocabulary, incident, literary allusions, and characters, like froth brimming from a pint, of which many are downed in the course of the new collection.

Kiely's voice is unmistakable. He writes the...