SOURCE: A review of An Evening Performance, in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 23, No. 2, Spring, 1986, pp. 205-06.

In the following review, La Salle characterizes the stories in An Evening Performance as compelling and well-written.

Surely the only ill effect of the critical acclaim granted George Garrett's big, haunting novels about Elizabethan England (Death of the Fox in 1974, and The Succession in 1983) was that it seemed to eclipse the fact that he has waged a long and important career in the genre of the short story, where for the last thirty years he has been chronicling in detail how Americans live.

Which is why An Evening Performance is so welcome. Gathered here is work from his four story collections as well as a half-dozen new or uncollected stories. The appearance of the book is even more significant because two of those earlier collections were released in smaller printings by...