PositiveThe Washington TimesThe Red Garden consists of 14 chapters, each an independent short story, connected by the common ancestry of the characters as well as the town itself, which even by the year 2000 remained isolated... The first story follows Hallie’s adventures in the mid-18th century as she fearlessly tackles the unknown. In the last chapter, Hallie’s descendant, young James Mott, takes life in stride and sets forth alone with only his dog for company at the end of the 20th century... Many of the elements of fairy tales are present in these stories... The language of the stories gradually changes from an old-fashioned semiformal style to a harsher contemporary tone ... The Red Garden is not great literature, but it is a delightful, sometimes enthralling collection of well-written stories, an effective combination of romance and reality.
