... engrossing ... can lead to a certain emotional abstraction, but these stories’ virtues more than compensate. Tuten’s prose is always vital, often dazzling ... neither normative nor predictable, and it bears the firm impress of the soul.
... fifteen scintillating short stories ... reflect his unceasing drive to hone his craft. The work confirms [Tuten's] reputation as a master of the genre at age 86 ... Tuten dazzles like the best of Jhumpa Lahiri, Alice Munro, and George Saunders. Here, with The Bar at Twilight he is at the pinnacle of his craft.
