SOURCE: A review of King of the Mountain, in Saturday Review, Vol. 41, No. 24, June 14, 1958, p. 38.

In the following review, Stegner responds positively to King of the Mountain.

Counting as separates the twelve vignettes which are grouped under the titles "Four Women," "Comic Strip," and "What's the Purpose of the Bayonet?" there are twenty stories in George Garrett's first collection, King of the Mountain. They are enough to mark him as more than a writer of promise. In seriousness, intelligence, economy, in their knack for people and places and their ear for talk, above all in the illusion of reality upon which, Henry James said, all the other values of fiction helplessly depend, these are stories to compel respect.

Born in Florida, educated at Princeton, tested by the Army of Occupation in Europe, and now teaching at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., Mr. Garrett reflects in his stories most...