Critic Stanley Young in The New York Times Book Review (September 25, 1938) offered this measured praise for The Long Valley:
As a group they are neither profound nor passionate stories of great stature—that is, they do not illuminate an age or a people either emotionally or intellectually, and they are occasionally flagrantly sentimental…Yet all have one rare, creative thing: a directness of impression that makes them glow with life, small-scale life though it is.[18]
Literary critic Ralph Thompson]in “Books of the Times” review of September 21, 1938 registers a number of complaints concerning the volume:
The callous Mr. Steinbeck, describing a coldblooded shooting ("The Murder") or a fatal manhunt ("Flight"), is impressive but artificial. The cunning Mr. Steinbeck, dealing with sex symbols ("The Snake") and feminine neuroses ("The White Quail"), is artificial and not impressive…"St. Katy the Virgin" is all right but something of a shock. It is quite as though Ernest Hemingway had come forth with an Uncle Remus story.[19]
Writing in the New Statesman (February 18, 1939) critic John Mair notes a “directness of feeling and expression that is coming to be regarded as distinctively American” in this collection. He adds: “Mr. Steinbeck is not a great writer—he has too little passion for that, and his mind seems too observant to be really creative—but in his own way he is as perfect a craftsman as Hemingway and his disciples.”[20]
