SOURCE: Hines, Thomas. “A Well-Behaved Bigot.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (15 September 1996): 3.

In the following review, Hines believes that although About Schmidt has an illogical and somewhat confusing ending, readers are not disappointed due to Begley's masterful storytelling.

For most of his life, Albert Schmidt had it all [in About Schmidt]. Rising to partnership at the ancient and venerable New York law firm of Wood & King during the golden age of the American Century, Schmidt did all he was expected to do: He married a promising editor, entertained in his Fifth Avenue apartment, sent his only daughter to private schools and Harvard, and “weekended” and “summered” at an old family home in Bridgehampton. It was a life devoted to taste, manners and, above all, to the quiet and systematic business of the WASP ascendancy—“exclusive” in every sense of the word.

But now, at 60, something has gone terribly...