SOURCE: "Breaking Out in Spots," in Spectator, Vol. 277, No. 880, October 26, 1996, p. 46.

In the following review, Moore profiles the characters in Listening to the Orchestra, questioning whether they know they are alive.

'She had always kept her own company and her thoughts and feelings turned inwards. To tell things would be to her like undressing.' 'She' is the nameless young woman in the title story of Listening to the Orchestra; with the utmost delicacy and care her creator, Susan Hill, undertakes the task of 'undressing' her characters. Each of these four short stories exposes someone who is 'turned inwards', 'holding onto' themselves, but the exposure is never brutal. The inside is turned out through glimpses, oblique angles, and precise juxtapositions.

Like a still-life painter, Hill rearranges familiar elements in each story. Some of these elements are physical details—seagulls, pots of tea, boils, harsh haircuts, thin mattresses, abandoned...