Miss Sarton is usually best in her portraits of women, and Poppy [the protagonist in Crucial Conversations], with her feelings of outrage and despair, is altogether believable. The interfering bachelor, Pip, has a feminine streak in him. The best scenes are when he is drawing out the twins, who applaud the divorce, or defending Poppy from the conventional criticism of her mother and mother-in-law. The desire of a woman who has been suffocated in her marriage to be true to herself in the last third of her life is very much of a reality and no longer considered a scandal in our society. The wonder is that Poppy waited so long. (p. 94)

Edward Weeks, "Life & Letters: 'Crucial Conversations'," in The Atlantic Monthly (copyright © 1975 by the Atlantic Monthly Company, Boston, Mass.; reprinted with permission), Vol. 235, No. 6, June, 1975, pp. 93-4.