SOURCE: A review of Set in Motion, in The New York Times, June 23, 1978, p. C23.

Broyard is an American critic and essayist. In the following review, he favorably assesses Set in Motion, noting Martin's focus on male-female relationships.

Helene, the narrator of Set in Motion, is walking down the street with Richard, the husband of her closest friend. Although she has run into him accidently, she says, "I sensed that he was up to something." And of course he is. Everybody, everywhere, is up to something; and it is this that I often miss in modern fiction. It sometimes seems, in the novels and short stories I read, that no one is up to anything.

Miss Martin even seems to know what people are up to. While I think that by now I would have settled for an author who simply recognized the fact that people are scheming...