A Special Providence, by Richard Yates, is a straightforward, intelligent, and clearly written story of a boy's growth and his mother's decline. It has all the clear, cool, accumulated observation that marked Yates' first novel, Revolutionary Road. Nothing intervenes between the author's knowledge and the reader's understanding but simple English that transmits that knowledge. There are no mannerisms here, no reluctance. These are simple people, and neither the author, nor the people themselves, nor the reader, has any difficulty in recognizing their feelings, in knowing what has caused them, and in finding their consequences. (pp. 127-28)

John Thompson, "The Clever, the True and the Marvelous: Three Fiction Writers (reprinted by permission of the author), in Harper's, Vol. 239, No. 1434, November, 1969, pp. 127-28.∗