SOURCE: Hughes, Glyn. “In a Strange Land.” New Statesman 110, no. 2853 (29 November 1985): 34-5.

In the following excerpt, Hughes offers a positive assessment of the stories in Home Truths, but notes that Gallant sometimes lapses into “cliché.”

Mavis Gallant's sensibility is one which seems to cast that of many other authors into a shadow; into a place from which they do not see clearly, or deeply, or richly enough. Her perceptions are keen and so thickly distributed that they make the textures of many other writers' work look meagre. This is not because of any excessive compression or colouring; her writing is relaxed and not ornate. It is because it is rich in perceptions; because she understands and controls so well the many things that are going on in the lives, or the under-lives, of her characters.

Home Truths is a partly ironic title, for the subject is either exile...