Waiting for Cordelia is soggy with stale crumbs from the bottom of the Great American Crackerbarrel—'perfection means you are what you are'—and the earth-mother heroine is too sweet'n'sad to be true. When she is not big-heartedly giving her clients 'specials' at a cut price, Cordelia is 'squeezing away at the fret in her heart'. Al is a sad sack, too. He wants 'to link my stiff wet lonely soul with the welcoming wet soul of someone'. There is altogether too much 'wet soul' in this ramblingly episodic book. Gold is at his best when he abandons his folksy philosophising and just tells funny stories. (p. 319)

John Mellors, "Roman Road," in The Listener (© British Broadcasting Corp. 1978; reprinted by permission of John Mellors), Vol. 100, No. 2576, September 7, 1978, pp. 318-19.∗