SOURCE: “Adele Goes West,” in London Review of Books, September 17, 1987, pp. 19-20, 22.

In the following excerpt, Lambert offers a generally positive assessment of Anywhere but Here, but concludes that the novel falls short of the depth and complexity that Simpson aspires to reach.

Mona Simpson's Anywhere but Here might seem in one respect a common sort of first novel: it is a book about an intelligent child growing up with a troublesome parent. In fact, though, it is evident almost from the beginning that this is a book which does not aim merely to tell a personal story well. One senses the ambitiousness of this book, a wish to matter, to take an interesting part in the ongoing conversation of American Literature, and this is exhilarating.

The child and troublesome parent of Anywhere but Here, Ann and her mother Adele, combine their struggle between generations with that classic...