“‘Tamarisk town’ deteriorates slowly like the town it describes; the author seems a little uncertain when she dips into sociology instead of confining herself to the natural processes of the soil.”
+ − Dial 69:320 S ’20 70w
“Sheila Kay-Smith’s place in English letters since ‘Sussex gorse’ and ‘The four roads’ has been peculiar. She has been visualized as a sort of female Thomas Hardy, an ironist dealing with elementals, making no compromises with the romanticism of the day. Yet her new book ‘Tamarisk town’ merely deepens the impression that she is a romanticist at heart.... The book is a compact, well-rounded piece of work. It intimates a vastness that is never definitely asserted.” H. S. G.
+ Freeman 1:550 Ag 18 ’20 350w
“It is a book surcharged with a great emotion, a worthy successor to ‘Sussex gorse’ and ‘The four roads.’ ‘Tamarisk town’ is a genuine work of strength, a novel with a Hardian touch, a work that will vastly move the reader.”
+ N Y Times 25:273 My 23 ’20 750w
“The tale has something of the magic of style and of mood which belonged to Stevenson’s fragmentary ‘Weir of Hermiston.’ For me it has the glamour of true story-telling, the creative reality which is so dismally absent from most studies of fact.” H. W. Boynton
+ Review 2:654 Je 23 ’20 700w
“‘Tamarisk town’ is an original and striking story, in which observation and local knowledge are happily united to very considerable imaginative power. Moreover, though the action is spread over nearly forty years, the sense of continuity is well maintained.”
+ Spec 123:622 N 8 ’19 550w