SOURCE: Osborne, Linda Barrett. Review of The Rose Garden. New York Times Book Review (20 February 2000): 21.

In the following review of The Rose Garden, Osborne praises Brennan's skill at dissecting the complex emotions of her characters.

Reading Maeve Brennan (1916-1993) is like watching a master jeweler construct a ticking watch from an array of tiny, inanimate parts—her exquisite skill in piecing together the emotional landscape of her characters is evident in every line of The Rose Garden. The 20 stories in this collection—almost all of them appeared in The New Yorker during the 1950's and '60's, and six are in book form here for the first time—expose the vulnerabilities of social-climbing housewives, Dubliners consumed by insecurities or angry longings, lonely or simply solitary New Yorkers and Irish servants who raise spite and malice to a high art. Several stories are set in Herbert's Retreat, a wealthy...