[Mr. O'Connor] has little or none of the professional Irishman in him or of the brothiness, feyness, sentimentality, that mar so much of Irish writing. At his best he is more truthful, lucid and substantial than any other Irish realist now writing and in … [An Only Child, his autobiography,] his talent is sure.

His story is by turns painful, hard, tragic, comical and sardonic. It is remarkable throughout for the portrait of his mother….

[The] book ceases to be merely one more account of a life and hard times by a clever novelist and discloses the growth of a mind and a governing idea. To liberate himself from the humiliations of slum life and its picaresque slavery the boy made a religion of education. (p. 1049)

V. S. Pritchett, "A Fighting Childhood," in New Statesman (© 1961 The Statesman & Nation Publishing Co. Ltd.), Vol. LXI, No. 1581, June 30, 1961, pp. 1049-50.