In his review of the novel, lead New York Times critic Anatole Broyard wrote, “After finishing Wolitzer’s book, I felt as if I had been on the brink of the abyss, pulled back by a last‐minute reprieve.
My first impulse was to rush out and live, to grasp at existence as every instant of it was climactic .
Apocalyptic as sounds, Ending made me feel I never wanted to take anything for granted again.
You can understand Marie Antoinette's saying, to the executioner, on the platform of the guillotine, ‘one more moment of happiness!’”[2] Ending was the loose basis for Bob Fosse's 1979 film All That Jazz.
[3] The recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships and an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters,[4] Wolitzer wrote for the TV series Family.