SOURCE: Cosman, Max. “Notable Novelette.” Commonweal 73, no. 16 (13 January 1961): 417-18.

In the following review, Cosman praises the controlled sentiment of The Light in the Piazza.

If Elizabeth Spencer needs any proof of her right to the praise former efforts like Fire in the Morning and A Voice at the Back Door have gained her, she has it in The Light in the Piazza. Though this latest offering is hardly more than a novelette, it is still a notable piece of work.

What strikes one first is its delicate perception of emotion. A quality of this sort is perhaps to be expected. What is not, and is therefore the more gratifying, is the book's control of sentiment. There is never a slopping over into sentimentality.

Not surprisingly, then, a similar consistency prevails in other respects. Everything is ordered. The end, for example, is implicit in the beginning, and the details...