SOURCE: "Truth or Consequences?," in The Saturday Review, Vol. XXXIX, No. 32, August 11, 1956, p. 17.

In the following excerpt, Kelly notes that while all of the stories in Bitter Honeymoon share anatomical explicitness, immaculate literary style, and gloomy endings, they also contain brilliant observations from Moravia of human behavior under emotional stress.

In considering Alberto Moravia's new collection, Bitter Honeymoon and Other Stories, let us assume we do not know the author has been hailed as one of the consummate craftsmen of our day. Or that groping critics have coupled the name Moravia with D. H. Lawrence and Stendhal in the field of sensual perception. The masterful morbidities of Conjugal Love and the nightmarish compassion of The Woman of Rome certainly have little in common with the malevolent monotone of Bitter Honeymoon. Or do they? Our mind now deals with the image of a sickly Cyclops, one sex-bright eye in...