SOURCE: A review of The Little Wife, in The Explicator, Vol. XX, No. 8, April, 1962.

In the following excerpt, Going explicates March's “The Little Wife.”

The regularity with which William March's short stories have appeared in texts and anthologies contrasts markedly with the lack of criticism of these stories. Perhaps the forthright style and the deceptive clarity of theme lead commentators to pass them by. Although March keeps the narrative thread simple, the complication usually lies in a series of thematically related insinuations about life.

“The Little Wife,” the title story of March's first volume of short stories (1935) and the selection of Wallace and Mary Stegner for Great American Short Stories (1957), is a case in point. The obvious theme that death is a reality and cannot be pushed aside should not obscure the neatness with which March weaves together his favorite themes and makes this story an epitome of...