[Shiva Naipaul] writes with the ironist's detachment, expertly and unobtrusively observing those details that mark his characters' idiosyncrasies, tracing through them the warp and woof of a social fabric that becomes increasingly frayed….

The world Naipaul paints [in Fireflies is] … drab, ugly, sad. But throughout the work he allows, almost absentmindedly and despite himself, gleams of humor, beauty, and spirit to shine through. We remember these, along with the vivid realizations of the violent and grotesque.

There are occasional clichés of language and implausibilities of character in Fireflies. These, however, are minor flaws. What bothers me more is a quality of style that—in common with Mrs. Lutchman's personality—is stable, thorough, emotionally limited. Not that it's boring: the details of dialogue and description are consistently sharp and well selected. But for a panoramic human comedy it seems to me to lack lightness. The pall of doom...