An Avenue of Stone is a skilful piece of contemporary reporting about our post-war lives, or the lives of a few selected personages whom Miss Johnson happens to have had, it would seem, under her observation. Her central character is a reluctantly ageing, but still captivating, beauty whose last bid for youth and life takes the form of a pathetic attachment to a spineless young man who apologetically sponges on her until he finds the girl to make him the kind of capable and dominating wife he requires. It is an authentic piece of observation, with few false notes, and has the unintense interestingness which the opportunity of peering into other people's lives, so like our own, and so unlike, always carries. The fact that it hasn't any other qualities, that the whole thing is flat observation without background or depth, is in one way rather … frightening?… depressing...