SOURCE: “Patrick White: The Short Story Pinches,” in The Christian Science Monitor, Vol. 56, No. 297, November 12, 1964, p. 11.

In his unfavorable review of The Burnt Ones, Kiely maintains that the “exceedingly gifted writer may be dabbling in the wrong form” by penning short stories.

Most Americans are not quite sure how to take Australia. The vast stretches of land, the rough living and ranch humor appeal to us and remind us of what we once were and would sometimes still like to be. But the little pockets of provincial snobbery and British respectability disturb our frontier ideal. They not only alter the vistas of open spaces and natural living, they stand right up and block the view, making it strange, incomprehensible, and unreal. The seven Australian tales in Patrick White's collection of eleven stories entitled The Burnt Ones are effective explorations of this problem, told not from an American but...