SOURCE: Prothro, Laurie. Review of A Reckoning. National Review 31, no. 15 (13 April 1979): 498.

In the following review, Prothro offers a positive assessment of A Reckoning.

In May Sarton's A Reckoning, Laura Spelman learns she has inoperable cancer, then realizes how ill-prepared she is to cope with death. She wants to take stock of her life, clear away the non-essential. Oddly enough, most of her family and friends turn out to be just that; but she finds it impossible to abstract herself from others in the process of dying. “The web of human relations entangles and nourishes at the same time.” She finds her real connections with women, sorting out ambivalent feelings toward her domineering mother, her sisters, her lifelong friend. In establishing these connections, Laura sees that being a woman is far more complex and difficult than being a man, and this understanding becomes the beginning of her “letting go...