SOURCE: A review of East into Upper East, in Publishers Weekly, August 31, 1998, p. 48.

The following review offers a positive assessment of East into Upper East, claiming Jhabvala's collection is “rich in character, observation, and insight.”

The author is too modest. Written over a span of 20 years, the 13 stories gathered here [in East into Upper East] (five of which have appeared in the New Yorker) are not “plain” at all. Rather, they're rich in character, observation and insight. The “Upper East” of the title refers to the Manhattan neighborhood; the title itself may echo Kipling's Plain Tales from the Hills. Novelist (Out of India) and screenwriter (A Room with a View) Jhabvala depicts characters struggling to reconcile dependency and accommodation in their relationships. Enmeshed by financial and emotional need, her upper class Indians and New Yorkers go to extremes to oblige companions, families and lovers. In the opening story...