There is nothing in [The Barclay Family Theatre] that I'd rather [Hodgins] hadn't included, unlike one or two of the collected stories in Spit Delaney's Island (1976). It attests, with The Invention of the World (1977) and The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne (1979), to the fundamental consistency of Hodgins's writing…. [There] are signs of additional interests, partly perhaps the result of Hodgins's time in other parts of the country, such as Ottawa, and other parts of the world, including Japan. Ireland and Bantry Bay are here again and of course Vancouver Island. There are a number of immediate reminiscences: Jacob Weins, a minor figure in the last novel, has grown prodigiously here, and in "More Than Conquerors" there is a failed resurrection counterbalanced by a "rising."

Although there is some broadening, the centre of the stories, the home base from which some of the characters stray or have strayed, is Waterville...